


one must imagine us happy

by ennuijpg



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (but a little bittersweet due to the nature of the podcast), Canon Compliant, Caretaking, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Getting Together, Grocery Shopping, M/M, Marriage Proposal, One Shot, POV Martin Blackwood, POV Third Person Limited, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Sharing a Bed, board games as intricate rituals, dancing in the kitchen to slow jazz through terrible phone speakers :), mentions of albert camus sorry, some discussion abt both their childhoods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26182960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ennuijpg/pseuds/ennuijpg
Summary: “Hold on—” he reaches a hand towards Martin’s face, “you have a piece of dust or fluff or something.” Jon’s fingertips brush his cheek, feather-light for just a second, and then they’re gone, leaving the scent of coriander and mint in their wake.It renders Martin nearly dizzy. “Oh,” he breathes, “thanks,” he says, and it’s almost inaudible, even to himself.Childhoods are discussed during grocery trips, feelings spilled over wine and Scrabble, and marriageproposed on linoleum flooring.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 42
Kudos: 184
Collections: Rusty Quill Big Bang 2020





	one must imagine us happy

_He’s always been a creature of habit, of routine, so there’s nothing quite as ungrounding as being pulled solidly into a world of light and movement after months without either._

Between the fog, the rain, and the crashing waves, the fog was the most treacherous. At least the drops of rain on Martin’s skin still felt like _something_ , and the waves hitting the rocky shore, swirling foamy white, then receding, sounded like _something_ . But the fog was different. The fog was blinding, a very distinct _nothing_. 

The instant the Lonely’s cold tendrils reached him, they began inexorably dragging him farther and farther from the world until he was, well and truly, completely, Alone.

And it’d be remiss of him to not admit that he was actually a bit relieved at first. At least there, he could sink into apathy, not having to worry about anything, about anyone. There was a very specific comfort in nothingness.

And the comfort stretched, it invaded his very existence. Projected into his future and blurred his past. It lasted both forever and no time at all, like waking up from a sleep feeling the sense of lost time, and yet also feeling like your head had barely touched the pillow. In there, he wasn’t Martin Blackwood, was never Martin Blackwood. In there, he was almost content being an outline of a man.

So when he first heard Jon, his initial reaction had been to try and run deeper into the fog, fade into it, away from Jon’s voice. But Jon kept calling, cutting through the nothingness. And then he was there, in front of Martin, so very much _there_ . He was there and Martin _saw_ him. 

As soon as he left the Lonely, Martin could not remember what it looked like. As much as he tried to remember the past few hours of his life, all that came up was sounds and feelings, or lack thereof. Like the fog had been blocking him from really seeing the pebbled beach beneath his feet or the raindrops suspended in the air. All he could remember was the freezing white mist and the hollowness that seemed still to circulate through his veins. 

By the time they were out of the Institute, night had completely fallen, and light was offered only by the street lamps and the windows of the few pubs still open. The next several hours passed in a blur. At one point, they met with Basira in a nearly empty, dingy pub. Martin processed little of the conversation, but the way her jaw set and eyes went glassy before she shook her head when Jon asked about Daisy, he wouldn’t be able to forget, even if he wanted to.

She handed Jon a single key with no keyring and a duffle bag that Martin still doesn’t know the contents of, wished them safety, and was gone as quick as she came. They stopped by Jon’s flat for what must’ve been less than half an hour and then went to Martin’s. He didn’t quite remember telling Jon the directions to his flat, so whether he did and then promptly forgot, just walked and had Jon follow, or Jon just… Knew, that knowledge was lost to Martin. 

They stayed at Martin’s flat longer, or if not, it at least felt like it had been longer. They had tea at some point, he’s pretty sure. They left the dirty mugs in the sink, Martin hadn’t bothered to wash them because he knew it probably wouldn’t matter. He had a feeling they wouldn’t be back anytime soon.

It was still mostly dark when they arrived at King’s Cross, twenty minutes early. The platform was nearly empty, save for a few weary travellers, most of whom looked like business people on their way to a meeting. Martin couldn’t tell if he was thankful for this or not. He tensed with fear any time a stranger stepped close, yet found himself panicking when people left the platform, as if he thought Jon would be the next to leave.

And now, now they’re on the 6:15 a.m. train to Edinburgh. It’s barely half full. Jon is sitting in the window seat, staring out of the polycarbonate at the grey wall of the station, with Martin to his left. And in this moment, Martin wants nothing more than to lean on Jon’s shoulder, melt into him, and maybe close his eyes to rest for just a second, but Jon’s done enough for him already, pulled him out of another dimension, for god’s sake. So Martin won’t ask for more. 

The train pulls out of the station at 6:17 am. The few other passengers soon settle in for the journey, some tapping away on laptops, writing in legal pads with ballpoint pens, others closing their eyes in efforts to grasp those precious few moments of rest before their destinations. It’s hard not to think about how these people haven’t the faintest clue of the dread powers that govern the universe they live, breathe, love, hate, and hope in. The part of him that had forgotten how to care thinks it almost pathetic before he tamps it down and hushes it.

Truth is, Martin finds some part of himself wishing that he were one of them. How much simpler it must be, to not know that some kind of tipping point is approaching. Not that he knows exactly when or knows the shape of it, but he can intuit that it’s coming. And there’s a burden that comes with knowing, he thinks. 

As soon as the thought enters his mind, though, he berates himself for it. Selfish and self-pitying of him to lament about the burden of knowing when Jon is sitting right next to him, burdened with Knowing. Sure, Martin may know more than the average person, but that’s nothing next to what the Archivist has to bear. It’d be an insult to complain about anything less.

It’s fifteen minutes into the trip before either of them talks. The sun had started to rise by then. It’s Jon who breaks the silence, with that halting sort of apprehension Martin would find endearing if the situation wasn’t so dire.

“So uh, h-how’re you feeling?” He turns from the window to look at Martin, with that intensity in his eyes that’s been so much more pronounced as of late. There’s no compulsion behind the words, though.

“Not sure.” Martin sighs because really, how _is_ he feeling? “I’m definitely not as cold as I was before, and I think my short term memory is coming back to me, head doesn’t feel as fuzzy. So better, I guess? But it’s...you know,” he waves his hands vaguely.

“Yeah,” Jon responds sympathetically. And Martin is sure he neither actually knows or Knows, but perhaps he _understands_ , on some level. “Do you, uh, do you want to get some rest? We’ve got hours to go before Edinburuh.” 

Martin is dead tired but knows that if he sleeps, then Jon won’t. Someone has to stay awake and alert, even if it’s not exactly likely any avatars followed them onto this train. “No, it’s okay. You should though.”

“Really, Martin, you should sleep, you’ve had a hell of a day.”

“So have you,” he retorts, and it would have been petulant had he the energy to make it such. “Besides, I’ve never been good at falling asleep on trains. Sitting up straight while asleep does some funny things to my neck.”

Jon seems to think for half a second. “Here,” he says, wrapping a tentative arm around Martin and pulling him close so his head ends up resting on Jon’s shoulder, “This okay? Comfortable?”

And Jon’s shoulder is a bit bonier than the average pillow, and their height difference means that Martin’s neck is still craned at a bit of an odd angle, but it’s more than okay, despite it all. “Yeah,” he breathes, “Thanks, Jon.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

Martin is out like a light. 

* * *

_Ever since he was a child, he’s always been a mediator for conflict, never the creator of it. Never dissented for fear of confrontation, for fear of burdening others with his opinions and thoughts. How much of that passivity was his own and how much was forced into him, he’ll never know._

Martin’s never been a heavy sleeper, at least for as long as he remembers. When he was a child, the dark always seemed so frightening, with that emptiness that seemed to threaten in its ambiguity. When he got older, he shed the fear of darkness, but he slept no more soundly. Always had to stay aware in case mum needed something in the middle of the night. He didn’t blame her, of course, it wasn’t her fault she fell ill, but he did long for just a week where he could sleep soundly all seven nights. 

But despite this, no amount of chatter from passengers around him, or sunlight through the window on Jon’s right, or jostling from the old tracks wakes him. It’s not until Jon turns to Martin, head still on his shoulder, and half whispers they’ve arrived in Edinburgh, that Martin wakes, bleary-eyed but feeling more at peace than he’s had in months. Not that he actually feels especially at peace, just, comparatively.

It’s a little past eleven in the morning, and the sun is high overhead, filtering in through the glass domed ceiling of the station. They have just over thirty minutes until the transfer train to Inverness, but Martin knows that because Jon is the type to insist on being at the platform ten minutes early, it’s closer to twenty. 

“We should probably get something to eat, yeah?” Martin asks Jon, who is a couple paces ahead, eyes on his phone instead of ahead, double, triple, quadruple checking the train schedule. 

“I don’t know, Martin, we might be late. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” He isn’t. But he knows saying that he is will get Jon to eat as well, more reliably than saying he should eat to take care of his health. “I promise the train isn’t due for at least another thirty minutes, we have time.”

Martin was right. Jon stops and turns back to look at him, “Okay, let’s eat,” he looks around the station, “Where do you wanna go?”

“We’re a bit short on options, but Caffè Nero’s right there, if you’re good with it?” Martin points in front of him to the left.

“Yeah, that works.” 

When they get there, it’s a little more crowded than Martin had expected. There are about seven people in line and no open seats at first glance. 

“Right, I’ll go find some seats?” Jon asks, looking up at Martin, and Martin gets the sense that he’s really asking _I have to leave your side for a few minutes to find us a spot to sit, will you be alright?_

Though the Lonely hasn’t really left him yet, there are enough people here, and Jon won’t be far, so he knows he won’t sink back into the fog. Martin nods. Jon pats his upper arm reassuringly and leaves to find a spot.

Because Jon has more of a sweet tooth than his disposition generally indicates, when he gets to the till, Martin orders a caramel latte and an apricot ginger crumble cake for him and an Americano and sausage roll for himself. He tends towards tea most of the time and doesn’t actually know if Jon prefers it to coffee, but he figures they could both do with the extra caffeine right now. 

The cashier offers him a loyalty card, which he says ‘yes’ to, though he doubts they’ll find any Caffè Neros where they’re headed. He finds Jon at the counter looking out the large windows that make up the front of the store. He’s sitting on the leftmost stool with his right leg stretched across empty space to rest on the stool next to him, to save it. It’d be more intuitive to just place one of their overnight bags on the stool, but as far back as the early days, even with all his professional posturing then, Jonathan Sims still took every excuse he could to not sit straight in a chair. 

“Sorry, I forgot to ask what you wanted,” Martin sets the latte and crumble cake in front of Jon, “so I just kinda guessed.”

“No, that’s okay.” Jon picks up the paper cup and brings it to his lips.

“Careful, that’s h—”

He takes a sip, “It’s perfect. Don’t worry, I’ve always had a high tolerance for heat.”

“Mmh,” Martin hums and blows on his own coffee to cool it down before taking a sip. 

Jon glances down at his watch, “‘Bout twenty minutes ‘till the train gets here, we should get going soon.”

It’s a five minute walk to platform 12 at most, so they could stay another fifteen minutes and still be perfectly on time. But getting there bizarrely early will save Jon some stress, so Martin doesn’t argue it. 

A mere two minutes pass, and Jon is slinging his overnight bag over one shoulder, so Martin follows suit. He finishes the last bite of his roll and tosses the wrapper in the bin before grabbing his coffee off the counter. 

When they get to the platform, it’s not as empty as King’s Cross was in the morning but nowhere near enough for a full train. Martin’s doubtful that it’ll fill up enough to be a full train come 11:48 am. 

Martin looks over at Jon, who’s shifting his weight from his left foot to his right foot and back again. He does that whenever he’s waiting for something. “So, how long’s the ride to Inverness?”

Jon stills just long enough to answer, “About three and a half hours, we’ll get there around three-twenty,” and then starts again. 

“No shortage of time to kill, then, eh?”

“No, I suppose not,” Jon shrugs and says before downing his latte and binning the cup. 

The platform slowly fills with more people, and before long, the overhead PA announces the train is pulling into the station just under a minute before it does.

Jon takes the window seat again this time, an unspoken understanding between them that Martin doesn’t really want to look out at the grey mist that occupies most of their route. As they settle in for the journey, Jon leans away from Martin to rest his chin on his palm and stare out the window. 

Martin tries not to take it personally, he knows that looking out the window is a cherished part of train rides for many and that Jon obviously cares deeply for him on some level. But the Lonely left him needing the reassurance of closeness, and the uncertainty in the unspoken words between them preys hungrily on the part of his mind that insists he doesn’t deserve good things happening to him. 

Despite Martin’s insistence, Jon doesn’t sleep. Jonathan Sims is many things, and stubborn is absolutely near the top of the list. He doesn’t sleep and instead spends most of the time pointing things outside out to Martin whenever the sky is clear. The rest of the time, he gets terribly quiet and lets that far away look creep into his eyes. 

About halfway through the journey, Martin nudges the navy blue duffle bag that Basira handed to Jon back in the pub, “What’s in there?”

“I, uh,” he pulls it out from the seat in front of him, “I actually haven’t looked.” He unzips it and starts rifling through. “Um, my change of clothes I kept in my office,” he hands the bundle to Martin to hold so he has both hands free to continue rifling. “first aid kit,” he sets this atop the bundle in Martin’s hands, “and, uh, this,” he retrieves a small stack of papers held together by a binder clip. “Oh,” he says, breathing a sigh of relief when he realizes what it is, “This makes things much easier.” 

He unclips the stack and shows Martin the business card that was at the front with ‘Simmons Vehicle Rental’ printed in bold font. He flips the card around, and Martin recognizes Basira’s neat handwriting, _they won’t ask for an ID if you slip them an extra £50._ The rest of the papers in the stack are actually just one folded up map. Jon unfolds it, and a fifty pound note falls out onto his lap. There’s a small area circled a couple times in thin red ballpoint. “Yep, that’s the place,” Jon holds up his left palm to show Martin the address Basira had written on it, then points to the circle around what is, apparently, Daisy’s safehouse they’re headed to. 

Martin nods in appreciation, makes a mental note to thank Basira the next time he can. “That _does_ make things much easier.”

Jon starts methodically packing the items back in the duffel bag, starting with the map, fifty pound note, and business card he binder clips together and places at the bottom of the bag. Martin hands him the first aid kit, and finally, the bundle of clothes that go on top and serve to make the contents look as inconspicuous as possible.

They chat idly about nothing for the rest of the trip. They bicker about whether a cloud looks like a dog or a fat dragon, Jon mentions the grass on the hills they pass looks drier than the last time he was in Scotland, and Martin opens his weather app to recite the forecast for Inverness. Martin can tell that Jon is taking care not to bring up the Lonely, treating Martin like he’s fragile. And Martin is thankful for it. For all he wishes he wasn’t fragile, he certainly feels it, especially now. 

Which is saying a lot because he’s always been too sensitive, felt things too deeply. From the times he’d come home crying because someone was mean to him at school and his mother would snap _stop crying, Martin, it’s weak_ , to the time a few years ago when he admitted to Tim over tea during a break that his CV was filled with lies and nearly burst into tears from sheer relief when Tim promised _I won’t tell, and hey, way to stick it to the Man, huh_ , Martin’s never been short of feeling. Well, barring the past few months, when he pretty effectively cauterized most of it. 

At 3:22 pm, their train pulls into Inverness Station, which is evidently much smaller than both King’s Cross and Edinburgh Waverly just from the fact that it takes them less than a minute to locate and make it to the exit from the platform. The light cloud cover and the September breeze makes it chilly enough for Martin to cross his arms over himself when they step out of the station building but not enough for him to reach into his bag for a jacket. 

There are signs pointing to various landmarks, Inverness Castle just a little south of the station, Inverness Cathedral across the River Ness, and while Martin has always been charmed by old buildings filled with history, they’re not there to sightsee. Instead, he lets Jon lead him away from the river, towards Simmons Vehicle Rental. It’s a fifteen minute walk there, and on the way, they decide to let Martin handle the rental process. He’s always been a smoother liar than Jon, and while aliases won’t save them from Elias and his ability to See, they’ll at least delay any local police trying to track them down should they investigate what happened at the Institute. 

Simmons Vehicle Rental is a small, squat building with a large parking lot on the side that seems to extend behind the building as well. The windows are scratched foggy with age, and the ‘V’ on the sign above the door is hanging by only one of its three bolts. 

When they walk in, Martin goes straight for the front counter, while Jon hangs back a little, taking a look at the little racks of travel brochures. The attendant at the front is absentmindedly tapping her nails on the counter surface, chipped metallic varnish catching the light from the fluorescents. She doesn’t look up until Martin is right in front of her. 

“Hi, how can I help you?” she asks, bored and monotone.

Martin puts on his best _cheery businessman up here for a work trip and definitely not running for his life from both the police and dark eldritch forces_ voice, “Hello! I’d like to rent a car, please. Just any sedan will do.”

“Alright,” she taps a few things into the computer, “Name please?”

“Kenneth Davies,” Martin says without hesitation. By now, Jon has made it to his side. He gives a polite nod to the employee but doesn’t say anything. 

She nods back, “So, what brings you two to Inverness?” 

And while Martin could never be mistaken for a man Oxford born and bred like Jon could, a decade of living in London has neutralized his accent some. So, to prevent easy identification should the police somehow come here later asking around for “two men from the Magnus Institute in London,” he leans hard into the more northern sounds and answers, “Oh just here for a business trip, corporate sent us two to attend a conference happening this weekend,” keeping the ‘u’ of ‘us’ round and in the back of his throat and the ‘s’ closer to a ‘z.’

“Hm, sounds fun,” she says, while typing a few more things into the computer.

“Yeah.” Martin knows full well it doesn’t.

She quotes a price for him, he nods and pulls his wallet out.

“And if you could just sign here please,” she grabs a clipboard with a form attached to it and hands it to Martin. “And do you have I.D. with you?”

He slides the full amount plus fifty pounds in cash across the counter. “Actually, I don’t, but that’s alright, yeah?” he asks meaningfully, nodding at the notes now in front of her. 

She half frowns for a split second before doing the metal math and adding up the bills, “Oh, I see. Okay then Mr. Davies, you’re all set. You can just head through that side door, and Mick will help you out. Have a good day.”

“Cheers,” he starts towards the side door, glancing behind briefly to check that Jon is following. He is. 

Mick is across the parking lot next to an unassuming dark grey sedan, waving them over. He tells them it’s a 2013 Ford Focus, briefs them on insurance policy, and hands over the keys. And then they’re on their way, less than ten minutes after they’d entered the building. 

Martin’s never been the biggest fan of driving, but he takes the driver’s seat anyways. Technically, Jon also has a license, but he can’t remember the last time he drove, and he hasn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, so they both decide it’s best not to chance it. 

Jon, with his better orienteering skills, takes on the role of navigator, tapping the address into his phone’s GPS and telling Martin which roads to take. The roads take them forty minutes out of Inverness, the buildings around getting much fewer and far between and the landscape becoming quickly rural.

Eventually, they reach a village with tiny dirt roads, a particularly windy one finally leading to their destination. The cottage is fairly isolated, with low hills behind it and no other buildings within at least a stone’s throw. Martin estimates that it must be about an hour’s walk from the centre of the village from the time it takes for them to drive there. 

The cottage is a small, two-storeyed building of grey stone. The roof is a dark brown with a couple shingles clearly angling to fall with the next strong gust of wind. It’s old but not irreparably so, and the garden is overgrown with tall weeds, the tallest ones just about knee-height, Martin estimates. He finds it quite charming, and when he sees the cottage, that masochistic and endlessly romantic part of his brain gives a second thought to how lovely this would all be had it been under different circumstances. Maybe, in another life, this would feel more like a honeymoon and less like a finishing before the slaughter. 

But for all his acute awareness of how truly dire their situation is, Martin is, and always has been, obstinately, stupidly hopeful. So yes, he knows whatever comfort this cottage affords him will be nothing but palliative, and yes, he will compartmentalize that knowledge for a few weeks and let himself enjoy this as much as he can, even for a little while. He feels he deserves very little but that the universe owes him this at least. 

When he turns the car engine off, neither of them move to get out at first, instead choosing to sit there, staring out the windscreen of the car for what must be less than thirty seconds but feels like hours. Martin hesitates because stepping out of the car would be surrendering any and every part of him that still clings to naive denial of what’s really happening, and he imagines it must be similar for Jon.

But life goes on and things must be done, must always be done, so he steels himself, locks the grieving of normalcy in a box, and takes his hands off the wheel. “Right, shall we then?”

Jon only nods and reaches for his overnight bag. Martin grabs both his own bag and the duffle Basira gave them. The path to the front door is a silty dirt, damp from last night’s rain and edged with weeds that extend into the garden. At the front door, Jon retrieves the key from his back pocket and struggles with the lock for a little before the door creaks open.

It opens directly into the main room, no entry hallway or anything of the sort to be had. It’s really more like two rooms in one or like two rooms with the wall between them removed. The door opens to the lounge part of the room, to the right is a fireplace and rickety staircase going up, and to the left is the kitchen. There’s a window over the kitchen sink that looks over the low hills behind the cottage, and Martin can’t help but think about how he’s always dreamed of having a house with a window above the sink so he could look into the backyard while doing the mundane things, like dishes. On the kitchen side is a small round dining table of unfinished wood with two chairs on either side of it. The lounge, if it can even be called that, has a couch facing the fireplace and a coffee table between the two. On the far wall is a white desk, now grey with dust and age.

Jon hums with approval, “In better condition than I’d anticipated.”

“Mm, yeah, upstairs?” Martin asks, pointing to the staircase.

Jon nods and heads up the stairs, and Martin follows. Every single stair creaks. At least they’ll be able to tell if anyone tries to sneak up on them. At the top of the landing, they’re greeted with two doors. Jon opens the one on the left, and is about to take a step in until he realizes what it is, “Oh, this one’s just the bathroom.”

So Martin opens the door that he had been standing next to. The bedroom is small, with most of the floor being taken up by the double bed in the center. A window to the right of it is covered with a gauzy curtain that Martin is sure will offer precious little shielding from the early morning sun. And just as he contemplates potential makeshift curtains, he realizes that there were only two doors on that landing. There isn’t another bedroom. 

Of course, he’ll volunteer to take the couch downstairs come time. Jon needs to get some proper rest. But for now, he elects to not bring it up until the evening. Instead, they both set their bags on the floor and Martin suggests they explore the kitchen a bit more thoroughly. 

In the cupboard to the left of the sink, he finds a box of tea bags, miraculously not out of date. There’s a kettle on the stove which he rinses before adding water to boil. On the shelf above the tea is three mugs, two of which he also rinses.

He leans against the counter to wait for the water to boil, an involuntary shiver passing through him.

“Cold?” Jon asks, soft and concerned.

Martin usually runs quite hot, and the mild autumn afternoon shouldn’t be a problem, but the Lonely is still holding on at the edges. “Just a little,” he answers. And at that, Jon immediately springs to action and heads to the fireplace. He pokes and prods at it until he turns back to Martin, apologetic, “Needs wood.”

“S’okay, we can deal with that tomorrow.”

The kettle whistles and Martin pours water into the two mugs with their tea bags in them. Jon comes over, and they sit, they have tea, and they don’t talk about why they’re there.

* * *

_There’s a kind of closeness he’s always longed for but never been privy to. The closeness of comfort._

They spend the rest of the afternoon unpacking and disturbing the dust that had settled over every surface between the time Daisy was last there and their arrival. Halfway through arranging his clothes in the dresser, he hears a panicked cry from downstairs.

“Aaaaaah!”

Martin bolts up and runs down the stairs as fast as he can without tripping.

“Oh Christ, please just _leave_!” he hears Jon say, strained and harsh.

When Martin gets to the bottom of the stairs, Jon is standing a few feet from the kitchen counter, eyes trained at its surface, raised shoe in hand. “Jon? What’s going on?”

Jon jumps slightly when he hears Martin, then turns to him and says, “There’s a massive spider here. It snuck up on me and it won’t leave.” His voice is hushed.

“Why are you whispering now? It’s not like it can hear you.”

“You can never be too sure.” He looks back at the spider and raises the shoe higher, but his apprehension gives Martin enough time to get to the kitchen counter and stop the shoe mid-swing.

“Don’t kill it!”

“Martin, it’s a _spider_ ,” he stretches the ‘i’ sound out long, as if that’s supposed to make it sound more sinister.

“Exactly, I’ll take it outside.”

“Okay, but please take it far enough from the front door. I don’t want it crawling back in.” For all the horrors Jon has seen, it’s almost funny how a spider of all things has him like this.

“It’s not going to crawl back in, don’t worry. I don’t think spiders care for houses that much anyways, it probably got in here by accident.” Martin cups his hands and coaxes the spider into them amid Jon’s horrified “You’re going to use your hand? Not a cup?” and brings it outside. It’s one of those fat fuzzy ones that he really finds quite cute. He crouches by a scraggly bush in the front yard, and the spider scuttles out of his hands and disappears among the leaves. And when he gets back inside, Jon thanks him but also points him directly to the sink to wash his “spidery hands.” He complies.

Just as Martin is finishing up the unpacking, the sun starts to set, and the light starts to leave through the doorways and windows. Neither of them had thought to try the light switches when they’d first arrived, the sunlight negating any need to. But now, it’s 7:30 p.m., and Martin tries the switch in the lounge to find that, thankfully, it works. He breathes a sigh of relief.

But the light doesn’t get much use, not today, because while there are still vestiges of sunlight through the ineffectual curtains, the both of them are fighting sleep and losing. Martin can tell that Jon would fall asleep, should he hold a blink for half a second longer. They hadn’t gone down to the village and had nothing to eat for dinner, but not keeling over is the priority here, so Martin doesn’t sit back down on the couch after testing the lights but instead asks, “Jon? Maybe we should go to bed. We’ll go down to the village early tomorrow.”

“Mmh, okay,” he responds, seemingly nearly gone just at the mention of it.

“I’ll take the couch.” Martin doesn’t even dare entertain in his mind any other arrangement.

At this, Jon snaps to full alertness, “What? No, you take the bed.”

“Jon, it’s okay, I promise, I’m perfectly fine with the couch.”

“You’re taller than me, you’re taller than the couch, just take the bed, Martin.”

They could go back and forth like this forever if Martin doesn’t find a way to appease Jon, so he tries, “Look, I’ve already slept some today, and you’re going on nearly forty-eight hours with no sleep. At least let me take the couch tonight, and maybe we can switch tomorrow, yeah?”

Jon sighs, it’s not really a point anyone can argue with, “Fine, but just for tonight.”

“Okay.” Martin takes his victories where he can get them and saves the debate about tomorrow’s arrangement for tomorrow.

Apparently, Jon is one for night showers, so he takes his shower while Martin rifles through the armoire in the bedroom and finds two blankets to bring downstairs. One is a cheap throw with fibers that seem almost plastic. The other is a heavy quilt that looks handmade. Martin wonders if it is. 

As he makes his ‘bed’ for the night, he hears the bathroom door open, the stairs creak, and then Jon is at the bottom of the stairs, looking at Martin. His hair is wet, the grey strands plastered on his forehead catching the dim light, just so. Martin will berate himself for it later, but he just looks for a few seconds, nearly awestruck. There’s something acutely disarming about seeing Jon like this for the first time, skin slightly damp from the shower, in an old Oxford T-shirt, all guardedness gone from his eyes. It’s so inconsequential, yet profoundly intimate.

“Hey,” is all Martin manages.

“Hi,” is all Jon says back at first. And then he says, “I just wanted to wish you goodnight,” and it sounds so formal but very much him.

“G’night,” Martin smiles, “Sleep well.”

“You too.” And with that, Jon is heading up the stairs, and Martin is watching him go. 

He’s out before his head even hits the pillow.

* * *

_And there’s a comfort he’s always longed for but never been privy to. The comfort of security._

The fog settles low to the floor of the cabin, and it’s the first thing Martin notices when his feet hit the floor. The second being that his back doesn’t ache after a night on the couch like he expected it to and the third being that it’s still early, barely dawn, and the light comes through the window, weak and purple. 

His eyes track the white mist to the front door, ajar. Panic rises so quickly in his throat it forces its way out of his mouth. “Jon? Jon??” he calls, nearly hysterical, into the emptiness of the cottage. The space seems so much larger than it did before. 

He receives no reply and leaps off the couch, the two blankets forgotten on the floor, and bounds up the stairs, taking two at a time until he’s in the bedroom, looking at the bed, neatly made and empty. At the base of the armoire, he counts one, two bags. The third is missing. Jon’s things are gone. His vision goes white for a second.

“Jon?” he calls again, and this time, the sound seems trapped in the small room. Utter silence comes the response. The fog has made its way upstairs where it invades the hall and creeps into the bedroom. On shaky legs Martin rises and half-runs, half-trips his way down the stairs, white obscuring where each step starts and ends.

Maybe Jon just left and Martin will find him just a little down the road. Maybe if Martin finds him, gets on his hands and knees to beg him to stay, he will. But then again, he’d never be able to live with himself if he guilts Jon into staying with him. But Maybe Martin will at least get to see him one last time and will get to say goodbye.

He flings open the front door and jumps when it hits the wall it’s hinged on with a violent bang. It’s as still as ever outside, save for the drifting fog that makes everything hazy, he can barely see the village for the choking white. “Jon? Jon?” He only hears his own voice echoed back to him in response. He runs barefoot out on to the road and looks wildly in all directions, finding nothing.

And stepping back into the cottage, he slams the front door shut to keep the fog out but doesn’t lock it in case Jon is out there, on his way back. It’s a silly hope, but good god is it hope.

He feels almost silly when he realizes it. Really should have seen this coming, huh? Martin’s never thought himself particularly bright, but he should still be able to recognize patterns, shouldn’t he? His ultimate fate, to be alone. His final resting place, Forsaken. “Jon?” he calls one more time, this time more like a statement lacking conviction than a seeking.

“Martin!” a voice replies, quiet through the fog, but insistent. Jon’s voice, “Martin!”

“Jon?” Martin jumps up from the spot on the floor he had sunk into. He follows the voice. “Jon? Where are you?” 

“I’m right here!”

Martin follows the voice and runs out the door as fast as he can without pitching headlong through the doorway. Nothing. He scrambles back inside and finds Jon standing over the couch, saying his name over and over imploringly. The couch is empty.

Martin’s eyes snap open. It takes him a second to register his surroundings. He’s in the safehouse, in the lounge, on the couch. None of the lights are on, but light comes through the window, weak and purple. It looks familiar. Jon is kneeling over him, face inches away, concerned.

“Martin? A-are you alright?”

His throat is dry and the words stop there, so he nods the best he can lying down. 

“You were having a nightmare. Nearly fell off the couch with how much you were moving. You were mumbling something too, didn’t catch it.”

So that was a nightmare. Martin swallows and regains his words, mostly. “I-I thought,” he sighs shakily and sits up on the couch, blankets pooling at his waist. Jon sits back on his heels. “I thought you were gone. Woke up and—well thought I woke up and the fog was everywhere and you were gone. All your things—y-you left.”

“Oh, Martin,” Jon murmurs, soft and reassuring, a hand on Martin’s knee, “I didn’t leave. I’m still here. Will always be here.”

Martin’s eyes close for a moment. He feels like a tightly wound spring just set loose, relieved but more tired than he’d been before he slept. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Jon leans forward, rests his forehead against the hand on Martin’s knee. The gesture shocks him with its closeness. And it’s practically too much for Martin. Instinct almost leads him to run his fingers through Jon’s hair, to ground himself and soothe them both with the repetitive motion, but he stops himself. He won’t take more than what Jon’s giving him. 

They stay like that for a minute, in the silence, until Martin realizes something, “Wait,” he starts, and Jon lifts his head from his knee to look up at Martin. He’d miss the contact if it weren’t for how Jon looks in the soft barely-light of the rising sun. “Why were you down here? It’s still early.”

“I needed some water. Lucky timing, I suppose. You should go back to sleep, I’ll stay here with you.”

“No, it’s okay, you should get back to sleep too. It’s,” Martin squints at the clock in the kitchen, “barely six.”

“I’ll stay, I couldn’t sleep properly anyways. I’ll stay and make a grocery list for later today or something.” Martin starts to protest, but Jon cuts him off, “Really, I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep if I went back right now. I promise I’ll sleep early tonight.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, don’t worry.”

It’s a tall task, asking Martin to not worry, but he relents, “Okay. Okay fine, thank you.”

For the third time in twenty-four hours, Martin falls asleep like falling.

* * *

_He’s always lived like he’s holding his breath._

When he wakes this time, it’s for real. The sun coming through the windows is strong, highlighting the dust in the air. He sits up, rubs the sleep out of his eyes.

“Morning.”

Martin turns his head, and Jon is sitting at the kitchen table, book in hand, smiling at him with a softness Martin wouldn’t have thought Jon was capable of just a couple years prior. “Hi,” he smiles back. The sleep still in his eyes blur the clock. “What time is it?”

“Half-past ten. If you’re feeling up to it, I was thinking we could go down to the village soon? I made a list.” Jon picks up a piece of paper with his beautiful but illegible script on it and wiggles it in the air demonstratively. 

“Yeah, just give me ten minutes to get ready.” Martin stands up, picks his glasses up off the coffee table, and heads toward the stairs.

“Oh, right now?”

Martin stops on the second step and turns back to Jon, “Yeah, why not?”

“Right, I suppose so. I don’t know, thought you might want some more time to, ah, wake up.”

“Nope, I’ll just hop in the shower, and I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, I’ll go up with you then, I still need to get dressed.” Jon gestures at his old T-shirt and sweatpants.

“Mmh.”

At the landing, Jon disappears into the bedroom, while Martin gets in the shower. As he stretches under the warm water, it registers that his back _does_ ache from being on the couch all night. Comes with the territory. By the time he towel dries his hair and walks into the bedroom, Jon is no longer there, probably already dressed and downstairs. 

Martin opens the top drawer where he put his clothes while unpacking yesterday and pulls out a pair of jeans and a thin, pale yellow, knit jumper. He’d never really cared for this one, feels the color washes him out and makes him look plainer than anything, but it’s not like he had time to pick his best clothes while packing to run away to Scotland in the dead of night. 

Jon is on the couch, tapping away at something on his phone when Martin gets downstairs. “Reception’s dodgy here,” he says when he hears Martin’s footsteps. “Do you want to walk or drive? I was thinking we could walk if you’re alright with it, it’s nice out today.” He opens his mouth to continue but falters just barely upon looking up, “Oh, I, uh, I like that jumper. Looks nice.”

Martin isn’t quite sure what Jon is getting at because it does _not_ look nice, but he flushes under the compliment anyways, “Oh? T-thanks, got it ages ago, don’t even remember where. Uh, anyways, yeah let’s walk. D’you know how long it’ll take?”

“This says fifty-six minutes,” Jon says, holding up his phone.

“Better get going then if we want lunch at a normal time.” Martin opens the front door before turning back to Jon behind him, “Have you got the key?”

“Y—” Jon pats his back pocket to be sure, “Yes, I do.”

They start down the dirt road, in the general direction of the village, the gravelly dirt beneath their shoes crunching in unison. The air here is different from London. It’s...sharper, somehow. Not with stinging cold, but with an unfamiliar clarity. Martin notes this to Jon, who breathes it in deeply before being interrupted by a yawn that overtakes his inhale.

“Tired?” Martin asks sincerely. “I know you didn’t get much sleep last night, sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Martin, my not being able to sleep wasn’t your fault. But also, I think I’m okay, actually. Think my body’s learned to function on barely any sleep by now.”

Martin smiles a little sadly in response. Jon deserves to rest because even if he can, he shouldn’t have to live every day on four hours of restless sleep.

“And, uh, are you—how are you—” Jon tries to tread lightly, forming and reforming the words, “How’re you feeling? After um last night?”

“Okay now, mostly. Fingers crossed tonight is better.”

“Yeah.”

As they walk, the dirt road grows a little wider and eventually splits off into a few paths once they near the village. They all seem to lead to the village, just to different parts of it. Martin stops to pull out the map he’d brought. Sure, he has his phone with him, but Jon did mention that reception wasn’t great, so he brought the paper map, just in case. Jon, on the other hand, continues forward, stopping only when he realizes Martin isn’t following.

“Martin? C’mon,” he tilts his head in the direction of the road second to the left.

“You know which way you’re going?”

“Yep.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I promise, it’s this way.”

“I swear we passed by the shop on our way here and it wasn’t that way.”

Jon turns back down the road. “No, it’s definitely this way, don’t worry.” 

“Okay, if you say so. But if we get lost, that one’s on you,” Martin teases.

“Sure, but you do remember I’m the navigator out of the two of us, right?”

“Wellllll…” Martin knows he’s right but doesn’t want to concede that easily. 

“Remember that time you got lost in Guildford for like four hours following up on a statement and by the time you got back to the institute, Tim and Sasha had already left for the day?” Jon reminds, equally teasing. 

“What—yes, but in my defense, Tim accidentally gave me the wrong address.”

“Mmh.”

“Can’t believe you remembered that. That was ages ago.”

“Of course I remember, I was worried then.” And it seems to take Jon a second to realize the significance of what he’d just admitted. His stride stutters when he does. Martin doesn’t miss it for a second, though. But he also doesn’t bring it up, still hyper aware of any boundaries he would rather die than accidentally cross. 

He’d devised a little system, a set of rules he’s lived by for over a decade, to avoid overstepping. Give and don’t take. If an action necessitates reciprocity, then it crosses a boundary until he’s proven otherwise. Physical affection is all about reciprocity and mutual understanding, so he doesn’t so much as place a hand on anyone’s shoulder until they make it clear to him that’s okay. Bringing someone tea, on the other hand, is completely one-sided and something that people can just do without expecting anything in return or the recipient feeling like they _have_ to do something in return beyond saying ‘thank you.’

Conversations are a little less black and white within this set of rules, but Martin’s managed to make some sense of it. Asking Jon what he means would be asking him to give Martin his trust, would be asking him to be more vulnerable in this moment than he’s indicated he actively wants to be. Of course, their relationship has changed a lot since the days when all Martin did was bring Jon tea and hover awkwardly by his office door, but this system is pretty much his life philosophy. Even near-death isn’t enough to make him unlearn it. So, he doesn’t ask. 

They do make it to the grocery store, and in six fewer minutes than Jon’s phone had predicted. So he definitely did know the way. The bell on the doorframe jingles when Martin opens the door, stepping in and holding it open for Jon. 

“Huh,” is all Jon says when he sees the inside, and Martin can’t help but agree. The atmosphere can really only be described as incongruous. It’s as if a big-box grocery store is trying to fit inside the skin of what was once a small, family-owned business. The walls are painted stark white, and the floor is a plain linoleum, speckled with a pale grey pattern. Pallets of shiny merchandise from big brands sit on small, unpainted wooden shelves that must be from the store’s previous life.

“Right,” Jon retrieves the list from his pocket. Why he didn’t just write it down in his phone, Martin hasn’t the foggiest. “So we need milk, eggs—”

“—Tea,” Martin pipes in.

“Yes, tea that isn’t two years old and nearly out of date, some frozen meals for when we don’t want to cook, and then some ingredients for when we do.” He starts listing off ingredients, “Uh, rice, chicken, dry pasta, coriander, mint—”

“Woah wait,” by the time Jon’s gotten to the third, Martin’s forgotten the first, “I feel like that list is about to be very long, and I’m gonna forget everything anyways. Let’s just go by each section when we get there?”

“Yeah, okay, good idea.” They each grab a shopping basket, and Jon leads the way to the sign hung from the ceiling with “DAIRY” written in large sans-serif green letters. The dairy section is small, so Jon quickly finds the milk, eggs, and yogurt on the list before placing all three in his basket. As soon as he does so, Martin takes the quart of milk out of Jon’s basket and places it in his own, earning a quizzical look from Jon.

“Your basket will get too heavy.”

“Oh, um, thank you.” He sounds confused but earnest.

“Mmh.” 

They make quick work of the poultry section, all Jon needed was a half kilogram of fileted chicken breasts. It quickly becomes clear that he is very keen on spearheading this shopping trip, leading Martin around and recounting the relevant parts of his list as he does. In the produce section, he selects a few assorted vegetables and fresh bundles of coriander and mint which go in a thin plastic bag before being dropped in the basket. 

“What are those for?” Martin points to the bag.

“You’ll see, I’m cooking tonight.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s been forever since I was last able to just take all the time I wanted to cook a meal.”

“Hm, I didn’t know you liked to cook.” It’s a little strange, having known Jon for so long and still learning basic details. But it only makes sense. They hadn’t been exactly chummy early on. And later on, the constant fearing for their lives wasn’t exactly conducive to small talk. 

“My grandmother used to make me stand next to her and watch her cook when I was young. Told me she was teaching me. Hated it back then, but turns out, I’d picked up a thing or two and started to enjoy it as I got older.”

The image of Jon in a sunlit kitchen, humming as he chopped vegetables popped into Martin’s mind. This time, it’s not just silly daydreaming. Jon really would be doing something as domestic as cooking for the both of them. 

They reach the aisle with the spices, and the section isn’t particularly large, but there’s at least twenty spice jars printed with tiny writing. Jon immediately begins searching before pulling out several small jars, triumphant. Martin hasn’t the time to read their labels before Jon puts them in his own basket, more carefully than he had the herbs. He pulls the list out from his pocket, smoothing the creases that have been smoothed and remade a half dozen times by now. “Okay, last couple things,” he tells Martin as he moves one aisle over to where the rice and pasta are. “Can you get two boxes of dry pasta? Whatever kind,” he points to the far end of the aisle.

“Mhmm.” Martin has always been partial to the pasta shaped like little shells and little bowties, so he grabs a box of each. He looks over and Jon is still perusing the bags of rice, so he calls to him, “I’ll be right back,” and finds what he’s looking for a few aisles down. He’s always been partial to white wines, so he finds a reasonably priced moscato and places it in his basket. He doesn’t really know Jon’s wine preference beyond reds. There’s a promising looking zinfandel with a pretty faux-gilded label, so he grabs that. 

When he gets back to the rice and pasta aisle, Jon still hasn’t put any rice in his basket. The corners of his mouth are downturned in a slight frown, and his eyes are still searching. 

“What are you looking for?”

“They don’t have basmati, just a lot of different brands of normal white rice and brown rice.”

“Oh, hm.”

After another ten seconds, Jon picks up a bag decisively, “Guess white rice will have to do.” He puts the bag in his basket, “Right, ready to go, then?”

Martin nods and they make their way to the cashier. There’s a display of chocolate there that tempts him, fancy bars wrapped in thick paper printed with colorful patterns. Jon sees him looking and puts a bar of milk chocolate in his basket. Martin follows suit and takes a bar of dark chocolate from the display. He feels almost guilty doing it, dark chocolate always seemed too decadent, so indulgent to him. The cheap brands at the sweets shop he used to go as a child only ever had different bastardizations of milk chocolate, and spending precious paycheck money on something as silly as chocolate seemed like more and more of a waste as he got older, so dark chocolate was something of a rarity to him, much less wrapped in fancy paper with fancy labels. But he’s on the run being pursued by dark forces from other dimensions, so the few pounds spent on this will, in all likelihood, not matter at all. 

“Wait,” Jon says and half-jogs off without explanation. Thankfully, the line doesn’t seem to be moving very fast, so he’ll probably be back before it’s their turn. He returns with four frozen dinners stacked on top of each other. “We forgot these,” he says, a little breathless from rushing around the store, and drops them in his basket he left with Martin.

After checkout, they’re left with three bags. Martin insists on carrying two, and they begin the trek back to the cottage. Back home. Fifteen minutes in, Jon makes the point that maybe they should take the car the next time they need to make a big shopping trip. Martin doesn’t debate that one, arms already a little tired.

* * *

_But perhaps he can finally exhale. Know what it is to trust and be trusted._

It’s just shy of 7 p.m. when Jon stands up from the spot on the floor he had been in for the last couple hours, “Right, I think I’m going to get started on dinner, yeah?”

Martin looks up from his book to see Jon already rooting through the fridge to collect the ingredients, “Yeah, sounds good, d’you want me to help?”

“Yes please. Can you grab the rice?” he points to the pantry behind him. 

Martin finds the bag of rice and sets it heavily on the counter, and Jon places a whole host of ingredients next to it, including a plate of chicken he’d marinated right when they got home. The knife he pulls out of the knife block in the corner of the counter looks just a tad dull, but he still halves the onion and then cuts it into strips much faster than Martin would be able to. 

“Could you,” he says while chopping, “put some oil in that pot and turn the burner on?”

“Yeah sure, how much?”

“Just enough to cover the bottom in a thin layer. Medium-low heat.” 

Martin nods, though Jon’s too focused on the onions to see. After they’ve all been turned to thin slices, he turns his attention on the pot. “So,” he says, half to Martin, half to himself, “first we’ll sauté some of the spices, just until the fragrance comes out. Some clove, cardamom, and cumin.”

Martin watches as Jon eyes the amounts of each to add into the pot, “What are making?”

“Chicken biryani, my grandmother used to make it all the time. Well, my mum also did, so I’ve been told, but I don’t really remember that as much.”

“Ah,” and Martin isn’t sure where to go from there. Childhood isn’t the most comfortable topic for either of them. 

Thankfully, Jon soon stretches his hand towards the cutting board, silently asking Martin to pass him the onions, and Martin knows the topic has quietly changed. He takes the board from Martin, nodding his head in thanks, and tips the onion slices into the pot, using the knife to scrape off the last bits. Jon pushes them around the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon for a bit before turning to Martin, “Can you help me sauté these while I cut herbs?” He holds the spoon out, which Martin takes, his fingers brushing lightly against Jon’s as he does. 

Jon pulls another knife out of the block, this one skinnier and shorter. He runs a little handful of herbs under the tap before mincing them. “You know,” he starts, looking over at Martin while still somehow chopping without removing his fingertips, “I really have missed this, cooking. I know I already said so in the shop, but I guess this right now is reminding me just how much I missed it.”

“Yeah?” Martin takes his eyes away from the pot to see Jon looking at him with an expression he can’t quite place.

“Yeah.” He smiles, and Martin places it. Serene contentment, no matter how fleeting. “Hold on—” he reaches a hand towards Martin’s face, “you have a piece of dust or fluff or something.” Jon’s fingertips brush his cheek, feather-light for just a second, and then they’re gone, leaving the scent of coriander and mint in their wake. 

It renders Martin nearly dizzy. “Oh,” he breathes, “thanks,” he says, and it’s almost inaudible, even to himself.

“Of course,” Jon near-whispers, just as quiet. The moment feels fragile, like a soap bubble, like they’re on the cusp of something. But the bubble pops just as quickly as it had coalesced, and Jon clears his throat, “I can take over there,” he nods to the pot, “I think it’s about time to add the chicken.” He takes the plate of marinated chicken and places the pieces there in the pot, one by one, until they cover the bottom, then places the lid over the whole affair. “Could you find me a small saucepan, please?”

Martin rifles around the cupboard for one until finding one Jon deems adequately small enough and hands it to him. 

“Thanks.” He adds what can’t be more than a few tablespoons of milk to it and turns the burner on. “Time for the saffron,” he tells Martin, shaking the little glass jar before adding a couple strands to the hot milk. 

Martin’s never liked cooking much. He can do it and certainly had to every single day from when his mum got sick all the way up to when she left for the care home in Devon, but between tight budgets and the narrow list of things she would eat, he’s never really had the freedom to enjoy it. But right here, right now? With Jon in this sunny little cottage, softly walking Martin through his steps? He’d jump at the chance to every evening if it was always like this.

Once the chicken is cooked, Jon adds the rice to the pot along with some water, the saffron-infused milk, and the herbs. He turns to Martin, “How are you with spice?”

“Alright, I think?”

Jon nods and sprinkles a few pinches of chili powder into the pot. Less than he normally would add for himself. “Right, so this’ll be ready in about twenty minutes, just until the rice cooks.”

“Mmh, okay,” Martin starts piling the used dishes and utensils in the sink before turning on the tap and lathering up a sponge. He washes the dishes from prep while Jon sets the table, leaving his duties every other minute to check on the rice. [1]

Almost twenty minutes later, Jon checks the rice one last time, “It’s ready.” He slides on a pair of oven mitts before carrying the pot over to the tiny dining table and setting it on the cast-iron trivet in the center. He takes off the lid and adds a few bright green leaves of mint on top. “I haven’t made this in a while, so hopefully I got the proportions right,” he comments while ladling a serving onto each of their plates.

“Smells delicious,” Martin praises as he sits down.

“Thanks. Watch out, there’s whole cloves and cardamom in there, which you might want to avoid.” Jon arranges a forkful with a bit of everything, minus the whole spices.

Martin nods, follows suit, and takes a bite. It’s stupidly good, the spices blending together into something unlike anything he’s ever had before, all punctuated with a sharp note of coriander.

“Good?” Jon looks at him, anticipatory. 

“Better than words,” and Jon looks both relieved and really rather pleased with himself. The meal continues like that, with Martin raving about the dish and Jon glowing under the compliments between other pieces of conversation.

“I think,” Jon starts slowly, thoughtfully, “I think I’ll be forever grateful my grandmother made me stand next to her whenever she was cooking when I was a kid.”

“Yeah? Martin can tell he has more to say.

“Being raised by her was…” he trails off before waving his hands in the air vaguely, “you know,” and Martin gets his meaning, “but she definitely got that bit right. When I left home for uni, I think one of my biggest fears was actually losing my culture. My Hindi is barely passably conversational, and I can’t even read it, so I knew that after she passed away, even if I tried, there would be a limit to how much I could learn about it because I could only use what I could find in English. So, I don’t know, I think food is probably my strongest tie to my culture now.”

“Mmh, makes sense,” and Martin can’t exactly relate, but he can listen. So he does. 

* * *

_But even still, all things take time, time, time. Something he’s never really been allowed but prays he gets a share of now._

The fireplace crackles, low and warm, casting the lounge in a soft orange glow. Jon is curled up on the couch with a copy of Kundera’s _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_ he’d found under the coffee table for some reason, soaking up the warmth like a cat. Martin is even closer to the fire, on the floor right in front of it, willing the heat to finally, finally quell those last remnants of cold that had followed him out of the Lonely. 

He writes a line in the notebook, then scratches it out, rinse and repeat. Somewhere between the breathtaking countryside scenery and the absurdity of the situation he’s in, Martin finds the inspiration to write poetry. But just because he has the inspiration and the motivation doesn’t mean the words are coming out how he wants them. He writes another line and makes a little noise of discontentment before crossing it out. Jon hears, apparently.

“What are you writing?”

“Uh, poetry I guess?”

“Can I read it?”

And that one surprises Martin a bit, “Um, maybe, when I’m done.” Yes, he’s ridiculously in love with Jon and would do near anything for him, but showing him his poetry is on some level of vulnerability Martin’s not quite sure his brain can grasp. No one’s wanted that from him before. So he says, “There’s not much of _it_ to read right now, actually. Anyways, I thought you hated poetry.”

“I dunno, it’s never really been my thing, but I guess I’m just curious,” Jon seems to be reasoning it out with himself at the same time.

“Huh. Yeah maybe, if this one ends up actually good.”

“I’m sure it will,” Jon says with a degree of confidence he definitely cannot claim.

“Thanks. But who knows? You’ve never read my poetry, it could be the worst you’ve ever seen.”

“Right,” and Jon sounds almost guilty, like he _has_ read Martin’s poetry or something. But that’s not possible, Martin decides. He writes all his poetry in this notebook and has never once lost it or left it carelessly out in the open, at least not that he remembers. He squints his eyes quizzically at Jon, but when all Jon does in response is raise his eyebrows, Martin lets it go.

The clock in the kitchen reads half-past eleven when the half-poem in front of Martin starts to blur as he grows increasingly tired. He closes the notebook, and Jon seems to have the same idea as he closes his book almost simultaneously. Then, he unfolds the blankets at the far end and starts draping them over the couch.

“What are you doing?” Martin interrupts him just as he places a pillow on one end. 

“What do you mean? I’m sleeping here tonight, remember?”

And Martin _does_ remember, after all, he’d been the one who suggested they alternate who’s on the couch, but he’d been hoping Jon would forget. “I mean, yeah, but really Jon, I don’t mind taking the couch. Plus, this’ll really mess up your back.”

“By that logic, Martin, nothing’s keeping it from messing up your back.”

Damn. “Well, I mean, well yeah but…” 

“But what?”

“But you already didn’t get much sleep last night, and I just don’t want to make you sleep on the _couch_ , I feel like you should first get at least one good night of rest before you’re made to sleep on the couch, it’s just—”

“We could share, if you want.” Jon says it quickly, as if on impulse. 

Martin catches what he says but reigns in his optimism to make sure he isn’t misunderstanding, “Huh?”

“I-I mean, well, the bed’s big enough. O-only if you’re comfortable with it, o-of course,” he rubs the back of his neck nervously. “I was thinking—

_He was thinking. About this?_

“—it might, uh—I dunno, maybe it’ll help with the nightmares?”

So he’s not misunderstanding. “Oh! I mean yeah, sure, I’m-I’m comfortable with it.” Jon visibly relaxes. “Are you sure though?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay, um thanks.”

“Of course.”

And they both stand there for a second, neither quite sure exactly what happens now. Until Martin says, “Uh, shall we, then?” gesturing to the stairs.

“Right, yes,” and Jon follows him up. 

A few minutes of puttering about the bedroom later, Jon is in the bathroom showering, and Martin is in his pyjamas, sitting on the side of the bed further from the window. It’s quite convenient that Jon is a night showerer and Martin a morning one. That way, neither of them have to wait for the other to use the shower, and also Martin has the next fifteen minutes to take deep breaths and try to calm the jackhammering in his chest. 

It’s fine, it’s fine, not a big deal. It’s not like he’s sharing a bed with the man he’s been in love with for three years or anything. He takes a breath, holds it for seven seconds, exhales, then repeats. It helps a little. But then he hears the bathroom door open, panics, then decides to lie down and pull the covers over half his face so he isn’t sitting up and forced to make eye contact with Jon when he walks in. 

Jon doesn’t make any indication that he thinks Martin is anything other than asleep when he first enters and instead just turns off the light and draws the curtains before lifting the covers and sliding into bed. It doesn’t escape Martin the weight of them using the same duvet when there are two perfectly usable blankets downstairs either of them could have chosen to bring up.

“Sleep well, Martin,” Jon says, quiet enough that it wouldn’t have woken him had he been asleep. _Sleep well_. It’s silly, but Martin feels like it sounds more conscious than the usual ‘goodnight.’ Like there’s more purpose behind it.

“G’night, Jon,” he replies and feels Jon stiffen just slightly, like he wasn’t expecting Martin to hear. Martin can’t really fall asleep though, heart still drumming wildly in his chest. He’s lying on his side, turned away from Jon and pretty sure that Jon is turned away from him, but he doesn’t dare check, in case he turns and is suddenly face to face with him.

Ten minutes or so into the quiet, Jon whispers into the darkness, “You’re warm.”

Martin isn’t sure how to respond other than honestly, “Am I?”

“Mmhmm.” Jon’s voice is sleepy and muffled by the duvet.

“Too warm? I can open the window or something. Or scoot over more.” The last thing Martin wants is for Jon to be uncomfortable because of him.

“No, no” and his voice is soft, soft, softer than ever, “this is perfect.”

“Oh. Okay, good.” The silence falls over them again. And it takes a little while, but Martin does sleep well.

* * *

_He’s a morning person. Because in the light of the morning, some things seem to transcend their earthly bounds, take on a shape unlike any other. Softer, more forgiving._

When Martin first wakes, it’s around 7 a.m., judging by how much sunlight shines through the curtains. He opens his eyes and becomes acutely aware of the fact that he had turned to his other side in his sleep and that Jon had crossed over to his side in his sleep and is now nuzzled up next to Martin. He tries to lift a hand to rub the sleep out of his eyes only to find Jon’s hand somehow intertwined with his own right hand. His face flushes something fierce, and he’s very glad that Jon is still asleep. It’s still early, and he’s still tired, so he lets himself drift back to sleep. He’ll deal with this next he wakes if he must.

But when next Martin wakes, Jon is no longer pressed up against him. Instead, he’s sat up on the bed, back against the headboard, knees bent, book balanced on them. “Morning,” he smiles down at Martin when he hears him stir. 

And Martin knows that he’s prone to overly poetic interpretations, but the light from the window halos Jon, and he really does look heaven-sent. “Morning,” he replies, voice still thick with sleep.

“I was thinking,” Jon closes his book, “that we could just have a slow day? Don’t think there’s anything we need to get done, really. Our first errand-free day. We could take a walk around the moors or something.”

“Yeah, that sounds nice.”

The rest of the morning passes slowly. Eventually, they decide to get out of bed. Jon makes pancakes while Martin sous-chefs. They take a walk, and Martin points out every good cow he sees, which is all of them. 

* * *

_There’s something to be said for expectations. And how he’s never dared to allow much for them._

After dinner, Jon finds an old Scrabble game in the back of the linen closet. What it was doing there as opposed to somewhere more reasonable, like the coffee table, Martin hasn’t the faintest clue. It does also bring up the question of what it’s doing in the safehouse at all to begin with. 

“Do you think Basira ever came up here with Daisy?” Jon asks when he first pulls it out of the closet.

“I dunno, maybe? She did disappear for days at a time, didn’t she?”

“But those never coincided with Daisy being gone, at least not that I noticed. I guess it depends on how long Daisy’s had this place, huh?”

“Mmh, yeah.” Martin’s only half focused, the rest of his attention aimed at wrestling the cork out of the wine bottle. Eventually it pops out, and he fills the first mug with the moscato, nearly to the top. The second bottle, the red, presents less of a challenge, and he fills the second mug as well before bringing them both, along with the chocolate bars they’d got from the shop, carefully to the floor of the lounge where Jon has set up Scrabble.

“Thanks,” Jon says when he hears the ceramic click against hardwood. 

“Mmhm.” Martin looks down at the board, then up at Jon, “You know you can’t Behold words, right?”

“Of course not!” He’s positively indignant, “That would be cheating, and I’ll have you know, Martin, I take Scrabble _very_ seriously.”

Martin stifles a snort, “Oh I believe you take Scrabble very seriously.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know full well what I mean.” 

They play, both of them re-remembering rules as they go. The game is close, between Martin’s bank of words he has from writing and consuming poetry and reading being a good two-thirds of Jon’s job. Eventually, Martin realizes that when Jon is tipsy, his tone softens, but his articulation gets sharper. All of the enunciation of his early days as Head Archivist, from all the effort he’s putting in to not sound drunk, with none of the edge. The effect is almost comedic with how stereotypically English it sounds. 

Halfway through, Martin gains a solid lead by playing ‘kanjis’ with a double letter, triple word bonus, which totals to a whopping seventy-five points. Jon mostly catches up near the end, but Martin’s pretty sure he’s clinched the win with ‘zephyr’ for twenty-seven points including a bonus. That is, until Jon reveals he’s been saving a ‘q’ all along to place above an ‘i’ to play ‘qi.’

“No way,” Martin is in full disbelief when the tile goes down on the board.

Jon smiles like a cat that got the cream, “Yes way.” He wins. By a measly two points, but it’s a win nonetheless. 

Martin lets Jon soak in the win as he gets up to get the wine from the kitchen. He refills both their mugs and rejoins Jon on the floor, this time, lying down while Jon sits next to him. The next few minutes are spent in relative silence as they sip, Martin occasionally propping himself up on an elbow to do so. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, per se, but it drips thickly with things unsaid. Until it doesn’t.

“Why’d you do it?” Martin asks quietly, taking great care to not look up and make eye contact with Jon.

“Do what?” 

“You know…”

“Hm?” 

And Martin can’t tell if he is feigning ignorance or not. “Y’know...go into the Lonely.”

Jon screws up his face, like it’s a strange question. “Why wouldn’t I have? You were there.” It almost drives Martin mad how matter-of-factly Jon says it, like there wasn’t a single logical reason he shouldn’t have thrown himself headlong into an entity’s dimension. 

“You could have died! Or at least, there was no way you could be sure you’d ever make it out.”

“Well, I had to try, didn’t I? You put so much at risk working for Peter, in part because of me, so it was the least I could do.” Martin’s about to respond, with what, he’s not sure himself, but then Jon continues. “No, h-hang on. That makes it sounds like I did it because I felt indebted. That’s not what I mean, what I mean is—” he sighs, runs a hand down his face. “I care about you, Martin. A lot. And I-I know I’m not good with these things, it’s just—I just—I know I haven’t always acted like it, but you’re important to me. And over these past few months...well, I missed you.”

Oh. “I missed you too,” Martin answers on reflex, before registering that Jon wasn’t finished.

“A-and what I guess I’m really trying to say is,” Jon pauses. Seeming to think, wrestling with himself before the clarity comes, “well, I-I love you, Martin.”

 _Oh._ In the fireplace, the flames grow, as if kindled by Jon’s words. And it’s dead silent for a second save for the crackling. And it’s all a little too much for Martin, actually. The tears well up before he even realizes, and on the next blink, they run down his temples into his hair.

That’s when Jon starts to really panic, “I-I I mean i-if that’s alright uh with you. Oh, Christ, uh, God, Martin, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—” Jon trips, stumbles, flounders over his own words, and it takes Martin many repeats of his name to get him to stop spiraling into so many mixed syllables. 

“Jon Jon Jon,” Martin is still on the floor, but now, he’s looking up at Jon. And on the third call of his name, Jon is looking down at him, nerves swimming behind his eyes. His hands are flailing, fluttering around Martin’s face, unsure of whether to wipe away his tears or let them run, until Martin reaches up with his own hands, damp with tears, and holds Jon’s wrists, stilling them, “I love you too.”

“I—uh, what? Oh thank god, I thought I’d upset you I thought—”

“Oh, Jon, you didn’t, I promise. You know I’ve loved you for ages, right? I’d said as much in the Lonely. And then you were dead for half a year, then you came back, then we both narrowly escaped death or something worse, and now we’re here and you’re telling me you love me? It’s just a bit much for a person to handle, you know?”

“I-I know, yeah,” Jon says a bit breathlessly, evidently still reeling a little from the effort of it all. It’s Martin’s turn to stun Jon into silence as he presses a kiss to the inside of each wrist before letting them both go. Jon doesn’t blush, at least not visibly, but he’s so close that Martin can feel the heat rising to the surface of his skin. 

They stay like that for a moment, just looking. Then Jon asks, softly, barely above a whisper, “Can I…?”

“Yes,” and for a half-second, Martin isn’t actually sure if he said it or just thought it. 

But he must’ve said it because Jon is leaning down slowly, cautiously, like he’s giving Martin every opportunity to stop him if he wants. But he doesn’t. So their lips meet, Jon’s right hand cradles his cheek, and maybe Martin does believe in the divine. 

Sure, the angle’s a little weird because Martin is still lying down, and Jon is still sitting up, and it’s a little messy, a little unpracticed, but nevertheless Martin melts into it because Jon feels like what Martin has always imagined belonging feels like. Jon parts his lips the tiniest bit, and Martin tastes milk chocolate.

There aren’t fireworks, there isn’t anything so violent and shocking. Rather it’s like returning home, like waves retreating back into the ocean after crashing into the shore, like the world righting itself, all its scars fading into nothingness. All the hurt he’s ever felt, forgotten in this moment, and the only thing he can feel is Jon. Feel him thinking _I love you, you, you._

When they part, Jon looks almost a little dazed, but he still has the presence to worry and ask, “Was that okay?”

Martin would be laughing if he didn’t just do the physical equivalent of baring his soul. “Was that okay? What a question, Jon,” he hooks a hand around the back of Jon’s neck, pulling him gently down, “Far better than okay, I’d say.” And apparently, Jon is the proactive type once you get past the initial walls of walls because he dips down the rest of the way and kisses Martin again. 

* * *

_Things take time, and comfort most of all. But it’s all a bit recursive, he’s realizing. The more he allows himself it, the more there is to be felt._

Martin is sitting in bed reading a book of Keats he’d brought from his flat when Jon comes into the bedroom. 

“Hey,” he says, lifting the covers and pecking Martin on the cheek before laying down next to him.

“Hey yourself,” Martin answers casually, as if the adrenaline of everything laid bare in the last hour isn’t still thrumming through his veins. He gets up to put the book back on the dresser and turns out the light. Jon is lying on his side, facing Martin’s side of the bed, so Martin lies down on his side, facing Jon.

Tonight, the gauzy curtains are enough to block the hint of light the crescent moon would have offered otherwise. Even still, he feels Jon’s gaze on him. There’s nothing eldritch behind it, and yet Martin feels the secrets of his soul are being coaxed out into the space between them. It’s almost enough to make him want to look away. But he doesn’t. 

Instead, he reaches out and pushes a lock of Jon’s hair behind his eyes. The grey strands almost shine in the dark. “Your hair’s wet,” Martin murmurs, half into the pillow, running his fingers through the entire length of Jon’s hair now, from the roots to where the ends pool around his shoulders.

“Yeah it is. I can go towel dry it more if you want? I know the pillows are probably a bit damp now.”

“No, it’s okay.”

An owl hoots outside, and the sound comes through the single pane of glass loud and clear. Martin blinks once, twice, and Jon is still looking at him. And he’s still looking at Jon. 

“So,” he starts, unsure of where he’s going with this, only sure that there’s somewhere _to_ go.

“So,” Jon whispers back.

“What now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno, really. All of it? But, I guess, where does this leave us? A couple?”

“A couple,” Jon muses, sounding almost surprised with himself, “I actually like the sound of that.”

“Doesn’t it almost sound too normal for everything else happening in our lives?”

“Perhaps, but that’s why I like it. Nothing supernatural about this.” Jon turns onto his back but then decides against it and turns onto his side again, this time, ending up closer to Martin than before. 

“Except everything around it.”

“Yes, but that’s _around_ it.”

“Mmh.” Martin can feel Jon shift almost imperceptibly closer yet again. But despite that, his heart still hammers unduly in his chest when he tentatively stretches an arm towards Jon. Jon grabs him lightly by the wrist and finishes the movement for him, pulling Martin’s arm around till his fingertips can trace the bumps of Jon’s vertebrae.

Jon snuggles close until his forehead is resting against Martin’s chest, like how Martin had found him when he woke up the first time this morning. 

“What do you want to do tomorrow?” he asks, and Martin feels the vibration from his voice in his own body.

“I don’t know. Explore the village? Or we can stay in. I’m good with anything really.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Anything, I don’t care. Long as it’s with” he interrupts himself with a yawn, “you.” 

And Martin would be lying if he said he didn’t get a little choked up when he heard that. “Sleepy?”

“Yeah.”

They’re essentially flush now, their legs tangling at the ankles. A sort of peace that’s foeign with how certain it is settles deep in Martin’s chest. Sleep weighs on his own eyelids. “Yeah, I think I am too. Time for us to actually sleep, I think.”

“Mmh.” He sounds half asleep already.

Martin whispers against the top of Jon’s head, “G’night. I love you.”

Jon does the impossible and relaxes even further into Martin. “I love you too.”

Jon falls asleep before he does, and Martin feels his breathing even out and slow. He loosens his grip just slightly, worried that his space heater-like tendencies will get uncomfortable for Jon. But in his sleep, Jon reacts, tightening his own grip on Martin until he gets the cue. Tonight, he falls asleep like sinking. And he doesn’t dream. 

* * *

_He’s long since resigned himself to the idea that his lot in life is an ascetic one. Setting himself on fire to keep others warm. Never until now had he seen someone try to stop him from striking the match or attempt to put the fire out._

Exactly one week after they arrived, Martin wakes up with his head pounding something awful and his voice hoarse. The blankets on the other side are still warm, but he rolls over to find them empty. He hears the quiet clank of pots and pans from downstairs and is sure he’d be able to smell whatever breakfast Jon is cooking if his nose wasn’t so stuffed. 

It’s the first cold he’s had in at least six months, very possibly a whole year. Jon had left the curtains closed, which was thoughtful of him but makes little difference in praxis. The flimsy white fabric on the curtain rods do about as much in blocking out sunlight as a doily would do. 

Regardless of how nice staying in bed and falling asleep again for another five hours or so sounds, Martin’s never been one to wallow in his suffering while ill. He’s always tried to mind over matter, power through it, in the past. There’s only so much wallowing you can do when you’re seventeen, freshly dropped out of sixth form, with the responsibility of caring for your sick mother on your young shoulders. So, he drags himself out of bed and plods to the bathrooms. He brushes his teeth and elects to shower sometimes later. The shower water has a tendency to flip between hot and cold unexpectedly and on its own, and he’s fairly certain that will only make him feel worse right now. 

Jon doesn’t hear him coming down the stairs. He’s humming a tune that seems familiar but Martin can’t place, bent over the stove, pouring something from a large ceramic bowl into the pan. Martin lets himself just stand and watch, just for a few seconds before alerting Jon of his presence. He seems so at peace, so in his element, and Martin wonders how long this can last. 

Martin sits down on one of the dining table chairs. “What’re you making?” he asks.

Jon starts a little. “Christ, Martin, I didn’t even hear you come down.”

“Oh, ha, sorry,” his voice comes out even more hoarse this time, and he stands right back up for a glass of water.

“That’s okay. Are you—” Jon turns to look at him, tilts his head to one side and squints, surveying the situation, “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah. I mean, well, no, not really, but it’s fine . Just a little cold I think. First one I’ve had in ages, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he downs the glass of water and immediately starts on the tea, filling the kettle and putting it on the hob, “bit upsetting for it to come right when I’m able to actually relax for the first time in, like, a year, but that’s how it is, I guess.” He sees Jon’s phone lying facedown on the counter and points to it, “Can I?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah sure.” Jon picks it up, unlocks it with one hand and hands it to Martin. He doesn’t even ask “What for?” until it’s solidly in Martin’s hand. 

“Curious to see what kind of music you listen to.”

“Oh, hm, I don’t think you’ll find that very helpful, honestly. My old phone broke last year, and I still haven’t transferred my full library to this one. Been, well, busy.”

Martin snorts at the understatement. When he gets to the music app, he sees what Jon’s talking about. There are a grand total of three albums there: Bon Iver’s Blood Bank, the soundtrack to Grim Fandango, and a collection of jazz standards. None of it is what he was expecting, but on second thought, none of it is what he was _not_ expecting.

“Grim Fandango? Can’t believe I’m dating a gamer,” Martin teases, but the weight of saying ‘dating’ out loud isn’t lost on him, no matter how insignificant it seems, and he watches carefully for Jon’s reaction.

He’s gloriously unfazed, “Don’t worry, you’re not. Played a tiny bit of it years ago. Didn’t finish it, but I liked the soundtrack, so,” he shrugs. 

“Huh.” Martin clicks into the jazz collection and hits shuffle. The sound of slow sax and clarinet comes through the tinny speakers.

“Oh, Miller’s Moonlight Serenade. That’s—” Jon interrupts himself, rummaging through the utensil drawer until he finds a spatula, “that’s my favorite off the album.”

And that’s when Martin surprises himself with his own boldness because next he knows, the phone is back on the counter, and he’s in the middle of the kitchen floor, extending a hand out to Jon, “Care to dance?”

Jon makes a small plaintive gesture towards whatever is in progress on the stove before immediately giving in and taking Martin’s hand, “Sure. Do you know how to?”

Martin answers with a definitive “Nope,” popping the ‘p.’ “Do you?”

“Not at all.”

Jon’s arms end up on Martin’s shoulders, looping around the back of his neck, while Martin wraps his own arms around Jon’s waist, pulling him close. They just sway like that, to the music. Eventually, Jon moves closer and rests his chin on Martin’s shoulder, hides his face in his neck. He kisses the freckles there, reverently, like Martin’s skin was hallowed ground, and their dancing, the holiest ritual. Martin had never felt quite as precious and loved. He blinks, feels the saltwater that doesn’t yet spill wet his lashline.

“Y’know,” Jon starts, and Martin feels his lips brushing ever so slightly against his neck when he talks, “that always happened to me in uni. I’d get through a whole term without getting sick at all, but the moment finals were over, I got sick, like clockwork. It was ridiculous.”

“Oh?”

“Mmhm. But still, you should, um, get some rest today. You could just have some breakfast and go back to bed, if you want?”

“Mmh, maybe, but I don’t think it’s that bad, touch wood.” Martin reaches behind him and raps his knuckles on the wooden base on the counter once because some habits never die. “What’s for breakfast, though?”

“American pancakes. Speaking of,” he lifts his head, presumably to check on the pan, “no, that’s not done yet,” he deems, and returns his head to its spot on Martin’s shoulder.

“Oh? Where’d you learn how to make those?”

“At uni. They were pretty much the only good thing the dining hall had on weekend mornings. And then one term, they stopped making them, so I ended up taking it upon myself to learn. Took over the kitchen in Georgie’s flat for two straight weekends for it.”

“At least she got pancakes out of it, though.”

“Only the second weekend. First time I tried, the batter was so thin, they ended up like poorly made versions of regular pancakes.” He lifts his head again, “Okay I gotta go flip that one, now.”

Martin unwinds his arms from his waist and misses the warmth instantly. He goes to take two mugs from the cupboard. At the stove, Jon runs the spatula under the pancake to make sure it isn’t stuck to the bottom. Then, in one quick motion, he flips it expertly, it spins 180º in the air and lands on the other side in the pan.

“Showing off, are we?” Martin teases.

He slides the pancake onto a plate before pouring more batter into the pan, rolling his eyes as he does so. “Martin, this is simply the most efficient way to flip pancakes. Why would I spend time flipping it with a spatula when I could just do this?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” He has no better retort, that probably _is_ the best way to flip pancakes, if you can do it without mucking it up, which Jon clearly can. The kettle whistles, and he takes it off the hob, murmuring a soft, “watch out” as he walks behind Jon with the boiling water. He fills the mugs and drops a tea bag in each, watching the color of the tea snake through the clear water. When they finish steeping, he adds the milk and sugar, putting a little more of both in Jon’s tea. 

Jon adds what Martin assumes is the last pancake to the stack on the plate and points to a green tin next to the sink. “Can you hand me that please?”

“Golden syrup?” Martin picks the tin up, inspecting it for an expiry date, “When’d we get this? It’s not Daisy’s is it?”

“I put it in my basket when we went to the store. You probably just didn’t notice it during checkout.”

“Huh.” He grabs the two mugs in one hand and gives the tin to Jon before setting the mugs down on the dining table. 

The plate Jon brings over is piled high with six or so pancakes, drizzled with golden syrup and topped with lemon slices. “Here,” he places two empty plates on the table along with two sets of utensils. 

“Y’know, you could’ve just split the pancakes between the two plates to begin with instead of using a serving plate.”

“Sure, but then it doesn’t look as nice.”

“Oh, so it’s about presentation.”

“Always is.” Jon puts three pancakes on Martin’s plate and three on his own, then drizzles a little more golden syrup on his. “Mm?” he holds the tin out to Martin.

“Mmh, no thanks, I’ll try them like this.” He arranges a forkful and takes a bite, “They’re good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Don’t think I remember the last time I had American pancakes. Must’ve been over a decade ago.”

“I think the last time I had them was before the Archives.”

They eat with quiet jazz from subpar speakers in the background. It’s the best breakfast Martin’s ever had. When they finish, he takes the dishes to the sink and grabs the washing-up liquid from the counter.

“What are you doing?” Jon appears from behind and gently takes the bottle of soap from his hands.

“Uh, the dishes?”

“No, I’ll do them, Martin, you’re ill. Go rest, take a nap or something.”

“Are you sure?” A little cold just doesn’t seem enough of a reason to not do the dishes.

“Yes, it’s just three plates and a pan, trust me. Best for you to rest.”

“Hm, okay. Not a full nap though, I’ll just read on the couch.” He picks up an old April 2013 issue of National Geographic from the pile of magazines under the coffee table. On the cover is a picture of a mammoth and some other animals walking out of a tipped over beaker. The headline reads ‘REVIVING EXTINCT SPECIES’ in a bold, sans-serif font. [2]

He flips through and finds the cover story, ‘Bringing Them Back To Life: The revival of an extinct species is no longer a fantasy. But is it a good idea?’ and starts reading. The article starts with a case study of the Pyrenean ibex, which went extinct in 2000. Apparently, scientists in 2003 extracted DNA from the cells of the ibex they kept alive in culture and implanted them into a goat embryo that had been emptied of the goat DNA. Eventually, a clone of the ibex was born but died shortly after. That’s frighteningly close to bringing an extinct species back to life, though. Almost a little too Jurassic Park for Martin’s comfort. 

But the very next section assuages his concerns a bit. Dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, too long ago for there to be enough intact DNA to actually bring them back in the same way the ibex was. The article then goes on to talk about scientists who support de-extinction for biodiversity reasons. Some also talk about the potential pharmaceutical benefits of having more naturally-derived compounds to draw from and…

Martin wakes to find the sun has moved significantly and with no remembrance of when he’d fallen asleep. There’s a light blanket on him, and he’s pretty sure he didn’t put it there. He sits up and sees the magazine is on the coffee table, which he also did not do.

“Sleep well?” Jon calls from the dining table where he’s sat reading a book.

“Hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but yeah I guess. How long was I out?”

“It’s half-past two now, so about four hours?”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Are you hungry? I made sandwiches.”

“Umm,” Martin stands up and is immediately hit with a wave of dizziness that forces him right back down on the couch, “no, I don’t think so. I think I might actually be feeling a little worse.” He leans back and closes his eyes, hears Jon’s footsteps. 

A cool hand is pressed to Martin’s forehead. “I don’t think you have a fever, fortunately. What are your symptoms?” he asks, well…clinically. 

“Head hurts, I’m a little dizzy, sore throat, and stuffy nose. I think it’s fine though, Jon, I’ve had worse.” He notices Jon is holding a book in his other hand. “What are you reading?”

“The Myth of Sisyphus. Are you sure, though? Just because you don’t have a fever doesn’t mean it’s fine. Do you want to go upstairs and sleep?”

“No, really, I don’t think I could fall asleep right now even if I wanted to.” He points to the book, angling to get Jon to stop fussing, “The myth itself? Or the essay about it by, uh, actually I don’t remember who it’s by.”

“The essay, by Camus. It was Georgie’s favorite assigned reading back in uni. Always tried to get me to read it, but I never got around to it before we, uh, you know.”

“Mmh,” Martin nods in understanding. He’s always hit with a small pang of longing when Jon mentions uni, but it’s never enough for him to stop him from talking anecdotes. There’s really nothing he loves more than Jon’s anecdotes. “At least you can tell her you’ve read it, next you see her.”

“Yeah, next I see her,” Jon parrots. 

“Is it any good?”

“I mean, it’s pretty interesting, I guess. All about embracing the meaninglessness of the universe. Letting things be meaningless for meaninglessness’ sake. I see the appeal, but I don’t think I _get_ existentialism or absurdism or whatever this is called the same way Georgie does, though.” 

“I don’t.” Martin clarifies, “Get the appeal, that is.”

“And fair enough, it’s all a little bleak.” He presses a hand to Martin’s forehead again, “You sure you don’t want to go upstairs and sleep properly?”

“Yes, Jon, I’m sure. Don’t worry about me. Go do your thing, I’ll just rest and read my article.”

“About extinct species?” he gestures to the cover.

“About extinct species.”

He puts his book down on the coffee table next to the magazine before leaning down and pressing a kiss to Martin’s forehead “Okay then.” 

“Jon,” Martin swats him away gently, “don’t get too close, you’re gonna get sick too. It’s worse than I thought this morning.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he counters, making his way towards the kitchen. 

Martin rolls his eyes though he knows Jon can’t see and picks up the magazine and resumes reading, this time with the quiet clink of pots and pans from whatever Jon is doing in the background.

The article is actually terribly interesting, and falling asleep during had fully been the fault of the cold. Picking off where he left off, it goes on about more species that could be candidates for de-extinction. The mammoth being one of the most famous examples. The technology is better than it was in 2003. But still, it’d be truly impressive if actually pulled off. Apparently no one has harvested eggs from an elephant yet. And this would require that, extracting the elephant DNA, inserting mammoth DNA, and re-implanting the embryo.

The article then goes on to talk about the potential moral responsibility to bring back species humans drove to extinction. Which Martin thinks is really quite compelling. Curious thing is, it doesn’t really mention what could happen if an extinct animal is reintroduced to the ecosystem. Surely if the ecosystem had already adapted to the extinction, suddenly bringing a species back might lead to some havoc? 

If they weren’t in a tiny town with the spottiest reception, Martin would very much like to spend the afternoon looking into this. He’s never been especially good at school, but he’d like to think that maybe in a different life where things were simpler, he could’ve been an ecologist or conservation biologist or something of the sort.

Just as he’s flipping through the magazine for another article to read, the small clink of pans and utensils stops, and a quiet settles over the cottage. And just as an article on Floridian manatees catches his eye, Jon comes over holding a cheesecloth satchel filled with a fragrant something. 

He hands it to Martin, “Here, press it to your chest.”

Martin does as he’s told but not before holding it to his nose first to try to discern what’s in it. He can’t tell. “What is it?”

“Ajwain, dry roasted in the pan.”

“Ajwain?”

“I think it’s also called carom? My grandmother wasn’t usually the most sympathetic person, but whenever I was ill, she’d make this and tell me to put it under my pillow when I sleep. It’s supposed to help congestion. Don’t actually know if it works or if it’s just a placebo, but I figured it’s worth a shot.”

Martin feels like something is lodged in his throat. Not that this isn’t incredibly nice, but it feels wrong. He shouldn’t be sitting doing nothing and letting Jon fuss over him. That’s _his_ job. “It smells nice. Thanks.” He looks up at Jon, “You didn’t have to though, it’s okay.”

“But I wanted to. Really, Martin, it took all of ten minutes.”

“Hmm. Wait—hang on, where did you get it? The carom? You didn’t get it on our last shopping trip did you? I swear I saw all the spices you got.”

“Yeah, I uh,” he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, “went down to the village while you were napping.”

“What? Jon, you said this took ten minutes, but you didn’t count the like multiple hours it takes to walk there and back?”

“I took the car, so it was only half an hour or so. Plus, I didn’t just get this, I also got some milk and other things. We were running low.”

“O-oh. Thank you.”

“Of course.” And he says it like a fact, a given. 

* * *

_There’s a difference still between letting yourself be loved and trusting that love. Gods willing, he’s finally allowed the latter._

A few days later, Martin is good as new and makes a trip to the shop while Jon pores over a recipe book. When Martin pops open the boot, he hears Jon call from inside, “Need any help out here?”

“Nope, I’m good!” he shouts back, before looping his arms through the paper bag and hauling them inside. 

“How was it?”

“Good, found pretty much everything on your list. Even got that specific—” he sets the bags down on the counter with a heavy thud, “—brand of chai you wanted.”

“Goodness, Martin, what else did you get, boulders?”

“Oh ha, that’s just the squash,” he pulls a green one out of the bag and raps on it with his knuckles, producing a hollow knocking sound.

Jon walks over and peeks into the bag before meeting Martin’s eyes with equal parts confusion and amusement, “This, um, hm, Martin, is this _entire_ bag just various squashes and gourds?”

“Mayyyyybe?”

“Wh—”

“They were half off so I took a few, but then the ones left looked kinda lonely plus they were a little deformed so I felt bad because other people probably wouldn’t buy them so…” he gestures vaguely at the bag. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Jon turns to press a kiss in the space between Martin’s neck and shoulder, “in the best way. Endlessly endearing, actually.”

“You’re not too bad yourself.”

“Mmh, glad to hear it.” He takes a non-gourd bag to the fridge and starts putting the items in, taking care to neatly tetris them.

“You know, something quite funny actually happened in the shop,” Martin starts, keeping his tone as purposefully casual as he can.

“Oh?” Jon prompts him to continue, voice echoing inside the fridge.

“That nice lady who’s bagged our groceries a few times—Maude, I learned her name is, by the way—asked ‘where my husband was.’”

“Oh?” Martin can’t quite parse if that’s just a shocked ‘oh’ or a pleasantly surprised ‘oh’ or something else entirely. “And what did you say?” Jon, previously squatting to reach the lowest shelf in the fridge, now sits back on his heels and turns towards Martin, fridge door still open and blocking him half from view.

“Stammered for a bit before correcting her. She said we had “that newlywed glow” or something like that.”

“Hm,” Jon reaches into the bag and puts something in the fridge before continuing, barely above a whisper and more into the fridge than into the open space of the house, “We _could_ do it.”

“What was that?”

He faces Martin properly this time, still sitting on his heels but with the fridge door closed now, “We could do it, if you want. Get married.”

It takes a second for Martin to recover before he asks, “Jonathan Sims, are you proposing to me?” 

“I—you know what? Yes, yes I am. Suppose I should do it properly though.” 

“Properly?” is all Martin gets out.

“Yes.” Jon switches to kneeling on his left knee purposefully, “Martin K. Blackwood, will you marry me?”

Martin doesn’t know whether to laugh because of how absurd everything is, or cry because despite all that, this moment is still perfect. “God…” he walks over to Jon and kneels too, so they’re eye to eye, and takes both his hands in his own, “yes, of course I’ll marry you, Jon. Yes, a billion times over.”

“I’d wager this isn’t how you thought your day would go, is it?” he teases lightly, though Martin can see the emotion gather at the corners of his eyes.

“Christ, I love you,” is all Martin manages before pulling him in and kissing him with bone-deep surety.

“I love you too,” Jon murmurs against Martin’s lips.

When they pull apart, Jon sits down on the linoleum floor of the kitchen, legs crossed, and Martin follows suit. He plays with the edge of Martin’s sleeve as he talks, “I know we probably can’t actually register and get married for real what with being a little bit in hiding, but I’m sure we can find a church or whatever in the village to say some vows in, have a little informal ceremony, if you wanted something reminiscent of traditional?”

“Oh, not a church I don’t think,” Martin remarks, more apologetically than he should.

Understanding washes over Jon’s face, “The moors then. Just you and I, with the sky as our witness.”

“Yeah, that sounds lovely, Jon. When do you want to do it? Get married?” Martin tries the phrase on for size. It fits better than any past version of himself had ever imagined it would.

“How about a week from today?”

“A week from today then.”

* * *

_He’s learning to allow himself some small luxuries._

A week from that day blesses them with sunshine and a light breeze. They’d decided to hike up to the tallest hill in reasonable walking distance, say some vows, and have a little picnic from their vantage point of being able to look over the entire village and the fields around them. 

The small stream that runs behind the cottage weaves its way over rocks, between trees, and leads them directly to the foot of the hill that slopes gently up for what must be a half hour or so walk, up to the top where several wild cherry trees cast filigree shadows. 

Martin starts up the hill two paces behind Jon, carrying a basket of sandwiches and roasted squash that Jon had made. He’s always been a little clumsy, and the stones embedded in the grassy dirt will certainly take full advantage of that, so Jon holds on to the bottle of prosecco. 

“It’s quite lucky it’s nice out today. Checked the weather this morning, and apparently there’s a storm tomorrow.”

“Somewhat omniscient but still need to check the forecast? You really ought to ask the Eye for a refund or something.” Martin quips.

“The Eye doesn’t tell me the future, Martin. I think it probably knows as little about it as I do, honestly. Though I guess I could technically Know what the forecast says without checking, but that seems like a waste of omniscience.”

“Yeah, I guess. Do you think that if it did know the future, it’d let you access that knowledge too?”

“I don’t know, probably not. Didn’t seem like Elias or Jonah, rather, could see into the future, and I doubt the Eye is going to grant me more power than it’s loyal servant of two centuries. Don’t think I’d want it, anyways. Things are strange enough as is.”

“Mmh,” Martin hums in as close to understanding as he can get.

As they walk, Jon turns back every other minute to check that Martin’s following. But there’s no one else around as far as the eye can see, and even if something were to try and quietly steal Martin away, he’s sure he’d make enough of a fuss to get Jon’s attention. Still, it’s nice to be checked on regardless.

“Just like Orpheus and Eurydice,” he jokes the next time Jon turns around, “but less tragic,” he adds, willing to be right. 

“But less tragic,” Jon echoes.

When they make it to the top, Martin realizes the bunch of cherry trees he’d seen from the foothill is actually a ring of trees encircling a patch of lush grass several metres in diameter. It’s almost comical how perfect it is, like a movie set. 

He retrieves a light quilt they’d unearthed from the back of the linen closet from the basket. It’s dusky salmon pink pales against the green of the grass. Martin sets the basket in the center of the blanket and sits down next to it, “So…” 

“So.”

“Do you want to sit?” He looks up at Jon, “It all feels so, I don’t know… formal, standing up.” There’s a line he’s treading, and he knows Jon is too. It feels a little silly, to be playing at a pretend wedding with no one in attendance on a hilltop in the countryside. It also feels like the realest thing Martin’s ever done. Silly because it’s excruciatingly vulnerable, precious because it’s precisely that.

Jon takes the cue and sits, legs crossed, across from Martin, their knees touching. 

“Now what?” Martin asks, as a sparrow lands on the tree behind Jon.

“I—uh, hm,” he quiets for a moment, deciding. “Dearly beloved,” he starts with just enough humor in his tone that Martin knows he’s half joking, “We are gathered here today to join Martin K. Blackwood and Jonathan Sims in the union of marriage.”

Martin’s eyebrows shoot up in amusement when he realizes what Jon is reciting.

“This contract is not to be entered into lightly, but thoughtfully and seriously, and with a deep realization of its obligations and responsibilities. The grooms have each prepared vows that they will read now.”

“Are you secretly a licensed officiant or something?”

“I uh—okay—hm this is going to sound weird, but when I was younger especially, I would just…memorize things? Like scripts, passages from books, anything, I’d just sometimes try to memorize them to see if I could? So once when I was in secondary school, my grandmother took me to the wedding of her friend’s daughter or something and I guess I just memorized this and I’ve had it stored in my mind ever since?”

Oh of course he did. “No, no, actually that,” Martin exhales a small laugh, which seems to put Jon more at ease, “that makes a lot of sense. Knowing you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh you know full well what I mean.” He looks at Jon for a second, taking it all in, tendrils of curly hair falling out of his bun, smile bright, and eyes calmer than they’ve been in months, none of that fraught and frantic intensity to them right now. “So, Officiant Sims, what now?”

“Well, I guess we just read our vows now. Simple as that.”

“D’you want to…or do you want me to,” he trails off, not quite knowing himself if he wants to go first or not.

“I mean, do you want to? I’m okay with either, really.”

“I—um—hm, you go first then.”

“Okay, I’ll go first.” Jon takes a deep breath, and Martin notices he doesn’t have anything written down. Though between habitually making it a personal challenge to remember things and being a patron of the entity of Knowing things, he supposes it isn’t that surprising. Instead, his empty hands find Martin’s, and he clutches tight. “Martin, I rarely find myself at an actual loss of words to say, but while I have words right now, I don’t think any combination of them can fully express the enormity of what I want to say to you.” He looks down at their hands and then back up.

“I don’t think I’d ever expected it’d be you because I never thought I could hold on to anything or anyone this good in my life. Falling in love with you was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Can’t even pinpoint exactly when I did because it was all just so…simply inevitable. I’ve never been good at, uh, things like this. Vulnerability. But you make me feel safe, and you’re beyond worth the teeth pulling.” 

He loosens his grip on Martin just slightly before continuing with a light laugh, “I, uh, I didn’t know how traditional we were going with these, but I figured since the rest of tradition is fully out the window, I’d include some proper vows. Martin Blackwood, I vow to spend the rest of my life showing you just how loved you are. I vow to cherish every single second with you, both waking and not. I vow to tend to your scars, as you’ve always tended to mine, to hold you through your nightmares, and walk with you through your dreams. I vow to always be learning new recipes for when you next bring an entire bag of wonky vegetables home, and to never kill a spider, no matter how much their spindly legs bother me. I vow to forever be by your side, so you’ll never have to be alone. I vow to love you, boundlessly.” 

Martin lifts Jon’s left hand to his lips and presses a kiss feather light to his knuckles. “I love you,” he whispers into the space between them and hears his own voice back, almost surprised by how soft it is, thick with almost-tears. “I, uh—Christ, Jon, how am I supposed to follow that one up?” he asks fondly, rhetorically. Gently extricating his hands from Jon’s, from his pocket he pulls out a folded piece of A6 lined paper, torn from a notebook and jagged at the edges. “Not as good at memorizing things as you, so here we are.” 

He unfolds it and holds it with both hands for how shaky he is and finds Jon’s eyes through the whirring of his mind. “Jon, I haven’t been a big believer in fate for a long time now, dropped all of that with the rest of my childhood beliefs I was brought up with, and yet, I feel as though everything in my life has led me to you. We’ve fallen into orbit around each other, I think. You know, I’d always fancied you a little bit, even in the very beginning. I mean, how could I not? You’re gorgeous and clever and cared _so_ much no matter how many circles you ran around yourself trying to hide it. So yeah, I’d always fancied you at least a little, but the exact moment I knew I was a goner was when we were in document storage during Prentiss’ attack,” Martin sees Jon’s face light up with recognition before being replaced by realization of what he’s about to say and an annoyance that holds no bite, “and you asked me if I was a ghost. Something about your sincerity then, it felt like it was the first time I was really seeing _Jonathan Sims_ , the man, and I loved him even more than Jonathan Sims, the Head Archivist, who I was _already_ rather enamored with. 

“I think we might be here past dark if I were to talk about everything I love about you, but it’s okay if we don’t because I’ll tell you it all between now and the end of time. But I will say, you make me want endless days. You make me feel seen, and not in the supernatural way, in the human way. Jon, I promise to always make you tea, exactly how you like it. To laugh at your jokes, even when I don’t get them. To be here for you, with you, through it all, no matter what things are in our future. I don’t think I’ve ever been as sure of anything as I am of this, I love you.”

Jon’s eyes are shining with tears not quite yet overflowed, and he leans forward to touch their foreheads together. 

“So, what’s next in the script?” Martin asks, feigning casualness. “In sickness and in health?”

“In sickness and in health,” Jon repeats. “But in all seriousness, I think the next part really does require an officiant who isn’t one of the grooms to sound right verbatim. But it’s basically, Martin Blackwood, do you take Jonathan Sims to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

Martin near giggles at the reference in third person. “I do.” Jon nods, prompting him to ask the same. “Jonathan Sims, do you take Martin Blackwood to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do.” He pauses for a second, lets the words take up their space in the air before continuing. “And normally in the ceremony, this would be the ring exchange, but we can just skip to—”

“Wait!” Jon’s eyes widen in concern before Martin alleviates his mild panic, “No, don’t worry. Just—” he reaches into his back pocket for a small green drawstring pouch made of crushed velvet that shines under the sun. He’d debated with himself for ages in the shop over this. “I got these from the jeweler in the village on Sunday.” He tips the bag open onto his palm. Two silver rings reflect the light like mirrors. It feels like too much. “Sorry, they’re uh, so simple. Not even proper silver, actually, j-just silver plated.” And yet not enough, at the same time. 

“Martin,” Jon covers his palm with his own, smiles up at him, “they’re perfect. Shall we?” When he removes his palm, only the smaller ring is left in Martin’s. He holds the other one up demonstratively, and Martin extends his left hand. Jon steadies it with his own right hand and slides the ring on Martin’s finger. “With this ring, I wed thee.”

“Thanks,” Martin mouths. Jon extends his hand as Martin warns, “I had to guess your size, so sorry in advance if this doesn’t fit.”

“It’ll fit,” Jon says with a strange sort of confidence.

“Hm,” Martin hums noncommittally. “With this ring, I wed thee,” and, well, Jon was right. “Now?”

“Well, by the power vested in me by me, it is my honor and delight to declare us married. So now,” he teases, wrapping both arms around the back of Martin’s neck and pulling him close, “now you may kiss the groom.”

Martin closes the gap. And in this moment, when his lips meet Jon’s, he feels the full weight of being on him, the heaviness of existence pressing down with full force. But right now, it doesn’t crush, only grounds. Maybe he’s learned how to carry it. 

* * *

_But the luxury of hope? Now, at least there’s one he’ll wrestle, full bloody, from the universe._

A dragonfly flits around the now empty picnic basket before landing on the far edge of it and staring at them with giant compound eyes. Its iridescent green thorax catches the afternoon sunlight just so. “Look,” Martin points and says quietly, as if trying not to scare it away. Not that he knows if dragonflies can hear or not.

Jon follows his finger to the insect perched there, “It’s a northern emerald dragonfly.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmh hm, Eye told me so. Won’t tell me anything useful, though.”

“Well, I think that’s plenty useful, now I know it’s a northern emerald.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Jon’s sitting on the quilt between Martin’s legs and leans back until Martin rests his chin on his right shoulder. The dragonfly grows bored of the scene and flies away, wings fluttering faster than Martin’s eyes can follow. 

He turns his head to the left and brushes a light kiss to the base of Jon’s jaw. “Here,” he places his hands at the small of his back, pushing lightly to prompt him to move, “sit up, I want to try something.”

“What’s that?” Jon has a habit of melting in the sun, and his voice has gone sleepy and soft. He sits up, looks over his shoulder to cast a quizzical look at Martin before turning back. 

“Can I braid your hair?”

“Oh, yes, of course you can, Martin.”

He reaches forward and frees Jon’s hair from the bun it’s in, taking care to untangle the hair tie without pulling on any strands. He succeeds, mostly. “Sorry, sorry,” he says hurriedly when an errant strand remains tangled when he pulls, and Jon winces. When it’s out, Martin can see that the black fabric has worn away on one bit, leaving the white rubber of the hair tie exposed. Luckily, he’s gotten into the habit of keeping an extra on his wrist for how often Jon manages to break them.

Martin unwinds Jon’s hair from the bun, and it tumbles down, nearly reaching his elbows. The scent of the lemon and lavender shampoo they’d gotten from the village fills Martin’s nose as he combs his fingers lightly through, starting at Jon’s scalp, where Martin drags his nails delicately across its surface. 

“What do you mean, ‘try something?’ You’ve braided my hair before,” Jon asks while Martin twirls one of those rare curls that’s completely silvery-grey around his index finger.

“I learned how a five-stranded braid works the other day, wanted to try it.”

“Oh? When was this?”

“I dunno, Monday? When you took that early morning walk and I stayed in bed. Reception was weirdly good that day, and I stumbled across some tutorials.” He separates Jon’s hair into five sections held between his two hands, passing the leftmost strand under the adjacent one and then over the center strand. He mirrors his own actions with the rightmost strand, and repeats until all of Jon’s hair is gathered in an intricate plait down his back, which Martin secures with the hair tie from his wrist. “Done.”

“Already?” He reaches back and runs his fingers down the braid, tracing the bumps and divots of the strands weaving through each other. He pulls it forward over his right shoulder, “Oh, it’s lovely, Martin. I do wish I could see all of it though.”

“You can?”

“No, I meant now. I know there’s a trifold mirror back home.” _Home._ They’ve taken to saying that of late. It makes Martin’s heart clench a little when he hears it from Jon. A sort of bittersweet longing for it to last. 

“Jon,” he says his name amusedly, “you don’t need the mirror to see it. I can just take a photo with my phone from here and show you how it looks from the back. Or did you forget we had phones that could do that?”

“Oh, huh. Right. Go on then,” he sits forward, further into the sunlight.

“Okay,” Martin takes his phone from his pocket and opens the camera app, “hold still. And…there.” 

Jon scoots back between Martin’s legs as he shows Jon the picture. The braid is a little messy at the very top when Martin was still figuring out how to hold the strands in the best way, but Jon hums in approval anyways. He plucks a small white and yellow daisy from the grass next to him, “Can you,” he reaches back, handing it to Martin, “put these in it?”

Martin smiles at this rare show of whimsy from Jon. “Yeah,” he takes the daisy from Jon’s finger and pulls the stem between two sections twisted around each other near the top. Jon hands him another, this one with light pink petals. They continue like that, Jon slowly depleting the daisy patch next to him and Martin adding them to his hair. 

They fall into a comfortable silence with the slow, monotonous actions of it. About twenty daisies in, there are almost none left in the grass, but only half of Jon’s braid has flowers in it. Martin decides to take some out, rearrange them. In the distance, the bottom of the sun touches the top of a mountain. Martin feels Jon shift with a full-body inhale.

“You know, I really wanted a life with you,” Jon says, quiet, on the exhale, like he was thinking to himself and hadn’t planned to say it out loud. Beat of silence. “Uh, didn’t mean to bring down the mood,” he adds apologetic, realizing the weight of what he’d said. 

“Who says you won’t still get one?” Martin murmurs in spite of his own gnawing doubt. He takes another daisy Jon offers him, pink. His hope may yet one day be the death of him, but today is not that day. 

“Do you really think so? That we’ll survive this?”

“I don’t know,” Martin chews on his lip, thinking. Another daisy, white. “but I have to imagine we do. That way, at least all the bad stuff has a _purpose_ of some sort. Getting us to that point.” 

Jon sounds thoughtful, “Huh, Camus would have a bone to pick with you.”

He hands Martin another daisy, pink, which he takes. This one he tucks behind Jon’s right ear, “Yeah, well, Camus’ dead, isn’t he?”

“You know what Martin?” Jon turns back to look at him, his own stubborn optimism reflected in Jon’s eyes, “I rather suppose he is.”

* * *

[Here is the gorgeous art](https://marigoldprince.tumblr.com/post/628101166996373504/this-is-a-piece-i-made-for-jessies-ennuijpg) created for this fic by Andy![3]

**Author's Note:**

> 1The steps Jon follows are loosely based on [this recipe](https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/chicken-biryani-recipe/) with some edits and notes from my lovely friend Savita ([@savviwriting](https://savviwriting.tumblr.com/)), who also helped me out with a few other cultural details throughout the fic![return to text]
> 
> 2[Here](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/04/species-revival-bringing-back-extinct-animals/#:~:text=This%20story%20appears%20in%20the,a%20bucardo%2Cor%20Pyrenean%20ibex.?awc=19533_1598230817_e1ec68b3488c834ac7a60e572ba05b5b) is the National Geographic article that Martin is reading.[return to text]
> 
> 3A million thanks to my RQBB team, Andy and Amber! Andy made the lovely art you see above and brought one of my favorite scenes to write to life! You all can find more of his work @marigoldprince on [Tumblr](https://marigoldprince.tumblr.com/) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/marigoldprince/?hl=en). And Amber was my wonderful beta whom, without, this work would be riddled with typos and syntax weirdness.[return to text]
> 
> The idea for this fic has been rattling around in my mind since February of this year, and I'm so glad it's out and written now! This was an absolute joy to write, and I had a great time participating in my first RQBB. Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Kudos/comments/feedback/etc. all greatly appreciated. You can also find me on tumblr [@ennuijpg](https://ennuijpg.tumblr.com/)!


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